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Supporting Denmark The ever industrious Dissident Frogman was toiling into the wee hours last night to produce some splendid graphics for blogs and other websites who want to show their support for Denmark. We now sport one of these graphics in our sidebar because we need to defend our imperfect but hard won rights to free speech in the western world.
The fact that a group of intolerant Muslims in South Africa, where they are a minority, have use the force of law to both prevent freedom of expression pre-emptively should make it clear that complacency is not an option.
Certainly we cannot just assume the media will defend itself… listen to this (mp3 sound file… may take a moment to download) and contrast the snooty BBC journalist with the Danish gentleman (a member of Parliament) who defends liberty regardless of the cost in economic terms.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Shame on the British MSM.
The new pope hadn’t even been elected for 5 minutes and they were completely beside themselves with Nazi allegations and Rotweiler analogies.
The RoP goes spastic and what do they print? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
And news just came in of the Religion of Peace’s latest peaceful protest against a Danish embassy, and also against the Norwegian embassy in Beirut.
The more we see these images of faces twisted in hatred against the West the more I look forward to the day when I can drive from Tel Aviv to Kabul by way of Riyadh, yet still be in Israel.
Well, at least they didn’t torch the Norwegian embassy in Beirut.
I don’t know if this is available in English yet, but a danish hot dog salesman was attacked with a bat by two young men: “Danish swine! You’re selling unclean meat!”
Such pathetic cowardice from the media, as well as most politicians. They’re scared, plain and simple, that they will be violently attacked : so they self-censor and appease. What chance do we have against this extremist, violent and ambitious ideology with ‘leaders’ like this?
Wouldn’t mind so much if I didn’t have to endure the daily preaching of journalists about how bravely they are speaking ‘truth to power’, as well as the other nonsense they carry on with. And then there is the man of Straw, comfortably surrounded by 24 hour state of the art security while the rest of us get on with our daily lives on the front line, admonishing the brave ones for publishing some cartoons and sympathising with the 21st century’s version of the barbarians.
Lesson learned by our enemy – their leaders and media are frightened by us and are prone to appease. Jihadists 1, West 0.
“Lesson learned by our enemy – their leaders and media are frightened by us and are prone to appease. Jihadists 1, West 0.”
Yet western politicans and msm are not the only people in the west – a substantial proportion of the remainder may be more emboldened in their disrespect for Islamofascism and perhaps more suspicious and less willing to give benefit of doubt to the ‘peaceful’ claims of Islamic governments and Islamic people in general. Whether this may lead to more people in Europe being less likely to accept further restrictions on civil liberties remains to be seen. Considering, in addition, the recent economically self-punishing proposals of Iran, I’d say the score is 1-0 to us.
Oh I agree! I think there is no downside whatsoever to this particular culture war and we are in fact winning it hands down. The fact it is even drawing the appeasers in Europe and the USA into the open only makes this whole thing better.
In England, the score is Islamics 1 England nil. The press, save Charles Moore, makes me sick. The freest press in the world – ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. The most cowardly, craven, appeasing press in the world? The British mainstream media. When I read those cowardly editorials yesterday, about how they were bravely not running the cartoons as they are now old news, I almost threw up. And the BBC thinks all the thousands of people who wrote to [D]HYS condemning the religion of peace and recommending others who had written, are very naughty and uncivilised and have announced: This subject is now closed. Your licence fee at work. I strongly recommend violence against the BBC and all who sail in that stinking tub.
Perry, I would be interested in reading your reasoning.
As long as Tony Blair and his fellow Marxists are in office, England is not going to win this. I suspect that right now Blair is busy thinking up new laws to push through.
I’d like to apologise on behalf of South Africa. Mr Mbeki is no friend of free speech. If we can mock Islam the next thing you know criticising the government will not be condemned for being unpatriotic.
And the swedish embassy in Syria as well. This means war!
I will not be cowed by extremists and I’m just one man.
“They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom” Cheesy I know but quite apt I think.
I’ve made a button for everyone who wants it. check my site.
Burn, baby, burn. The more fanatical they get, the more they marginalise themselves to average punters in the West. Untapped popular support is political arbitrage. Cue the arbitrageurs.
Diss, your graphic is superb. Elegant and telling. As always.
Dissident Frogmann –
The graphic is perfect. Are you selling shirts?
Does anyone have links to anyone who is?
Wow!!!! In an official biography, published yesterday, Danish Queen Margrethe says:
She said: “We are being challenged by Islam these years – globally as well as locally. It is a challenge we have to take seriously. We have let this issue float about for too long because we are tolerant and lazy.
“We have to show our opposition to Islam and we have to, at times, run the risk of having unflattering labels placed on us because there are some things for which we should display no tolerance.”
“And when we are tolerant, we must know whether it is because of convenience or conviction.”
Tony Blair, are you reading this, you cowardly, spineless, foul little lump of product of the lower intestine? If you came near my cat, he would dig a hole and try to bury you.
Diss – I’ve just read what you wrote on your site and I agree. Let’s pump up the volume on Denmark! I also agree that this is building up to being a defining moment.
Blair is not England and the government is not England. The Guardian, to their credit, ran front page pictures of the most offensive placards at the demo and I do not think the ‘man in the street’ is under any misapprehensions whatsoever about what has just happened.
The job of the apologists for Islamic intolerance just got vastly harder and by any objective measure opinions even in spineless Europe have hardened visibly.
The enemy is out in the open, in our streets, and damn are they ugly. And moreover they are not attacking Israel (some foreign country who the Guardian says “do bad things”) or America (some other foreign country the BBC says is run by BushMcHitler and “do bad things”), they are attacking tolerant non-colonialist non-military superpower non-zionist DENMARK and screaming that they want an Islamic veto over free speech in secular/Christian societies and they will kill anyone who upsets them. Holy.Fucking.Shit.
Frankly short of them calling for a ban on soccer, I cannot really think how the enemies of liberty could contrive to make themselves look less appealing and beyond the pale. Even the Islington Set are gagging over their cornflakes this time.
Sorry, but this is about as good as it gets. More and faster please.
I see Donald Rumsfeld has stood up to be counted:
MUNICH, Germany – — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld pushed Saturday for unity in the fight against terrorism, telling a meeting of the world’s top security officials that “a war has been declared on all of our nations and on our people.” […]
“They seek to take over governments from North Africa to Southeast Asia and to re-establish a caliphate they hope, one day, will include every continent,” he said. “They have designed and distributed a map where national borders are erased and replaced by a global extremist empire.”
(I got this off the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler.)
South Africa is not a free country. It’s better than many, but press censorship is not unusual there, for all sorts of reasons.
In the West proper, complacency is very much an option. Anything else shows an exaggerated sense of the primitivists’ power and importance. If the cartoons were banned, I would immediately start plastering them all over the place. But they’re not, and they can’t be, and to make a fuss simply gives the idea more credence than it deserves.
As for Gaza or Lebanon, the international relations are based on the fact that we are rich and powerful, and they are backward supplicants. If they want to drive Danes out of Lebanon or the EU out of Palestine, it’s their loss. Sod them. They’re like a toddler stamping his feet because Mummy won’t tell off big brother. Hell, the Palestinian Authority is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the EU – if the EU left they’d wind up begging the Israelis for bread.
Count me in for complacency.
Speaking of freedom of speech, isn’t the west a little hypocritical when David Irving is in jail for expressing his dubious views?
Is Simon Jenkins the ultimate Dhimmi?
What a tool.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-2025511,00.html
I completely agree that the pathetic David Irving (whom I have had the personal privilege of belting regarding an altogether different matter) should not be in jail just because he is a lying sack of shit, but if you think that because things are not perfect in the west it makes defending what we do have ‘hypocritical’, then I think you are both very much mistaken and have some rather strange reasoning, much as I think Andrew McGuiness is very much mistaken for his complacency.
Only a a few days ago, we came within a hair’s breadth of making the Jyllands-Posten cartoons illegal in Britain under the incitement to religious hatred laws. If not for the Lord’s amendments, it would now be illegal to hurt people’s feeling on religious grounds.
“The job of the apologists for Islamic intolerance just got vastly harder”
Are you sure? Normally after a terrorist attack or some kind of extreme intolerance, the apologists just say “That’s not the real Islam”.
Now I don’t know what the real Islam is, but until that is established the public are still going to be unsure about whats going on.
Embassies burn, demonstrations occur across the world, but “this is not the real Islam”. Sure.
People are stupid, no doubt about it, but not that fucking stupid. This time everyone but the irrelevent fucktard minority get the picture. Even the Euros are pissed. Yeah, I got to agree this has really has been a good thing: wake up time for the world.
Perry writes: “Only a a few days ago, we came within a hair’s breadth of making the Jyllands-Posten cartoons illegal in Britain …”.
And the effect is exactly the same as if the bill had passed.
The British press have turned into collaborators in their own demasculisation.
This self-censorship was he exact point that motivated Mr Flemming Rose to call for designers to submit cartoons that his paper would publish. The whole thing was to illuminate the kind of self-censorship that is currently being practised with such unctuous self-congratulation by Britain’s formerly free press.
A good catch over at the Belmont Club,
“Lizk said…
Why Denmark? Why now? Why are the demonstrations so well organized? Where did all the Danish flags appear from in the Palestinian Authority areas?
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/ notes:
“when the UN Security Council gets round to considering what form of sanctions to impose on Iran, guess to whom chairmanship of the Council will have passed. You’ve got it… plucky little Denmark.
Suddenly, the pieces fall into shape. The rumpus suddenly escalated, complete with fabricated offensive cartoons, to so enflame Muslim opinion that Denmark could be intimidated directly through a threatened Muslim boycott of its goods, or indirectly by the EU fearful of a wider boycott, into voting in favour of Iran.”
12:06 AM
Mr de Havilland,
I am not afraid of the Islamic extremists,but I am frightened of our Quisling government,which as I write is probably working out who it can most easliy sell down the river to create the impression of having done something about this.
Judging by Blair’s past record, he will support the side which screams the most and blows shit up,exactly as he surrendered to the IRA.
The police will be overjoyed with this outcome, as it allows threm to concentrate on crushing the middle classes and keeps them away from dangerous criminals.
My fear is if it came to “Hey Lads Hey”,the people of Britain would be facing the forces of Blairitania as well as Islamofascists.
Sadly, what Ron Brick said.
Does anyone know if any US newspapers have run the cartoons? So far, I haven’t seen any… If it’s true that the U.S. media are not running these toons, then I must say these bastards are showing their true colors.
Support Denmark.
td
Perry: It’s your blog & I’m grateful for your largesse in that I am able to post a comment or two.
However, I’m a little confused that Verity got her knuckles rapped for the “camel tick’s fart.”(?) remark but you call David Irving ” lying sack of shit.” He may well be, but so could SamJ deserve Verity’s epithet.
But, as I said, it’s your blog & yours are the rules; strange though.
American Conservative William Buckley’s article is worth a a read at National Review Online……….& for those of us who enjoy “farts & shits” there is no finer uninhibited site than The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller.
Otoh, Ron Brick, the message from the Belmont Club makes absolutely no sense at all.
Why would the Palestinians, “British” Muslims, “Danish, Norwegian, French, Swedish” Muslims create mayhem do violence against Denmark and other countries – including in the Middle East? Why would they demonstrate in Lebanon, Syria and so on?
Surely you are not proposing that all this violence is in support of Iran?
The Arabs and the Iranians don’t like each other, to put it mildly. The first thing any Iranian will make clear to you is, “I’m not an Arab”. The feeling’s mutual. I could be wrong, but I don’t think they’re going to patch up 1500 years of mutual contempt all of a sudden.
Charles Moore’s observation that there suddenly seemed to be hundreds of Danish flags available throughout the ME is very interesting, though.
Does anyone know if there are plans for a pro-free speech rally? If so where and when?
Sad to say but the NY Sun, I believe, is the only US newspaper to have published the photos.
Verity never believe that kind of reasoning is alwys truth. Molotov-Ribbentrop and thousands of others.
Besides, the Arab Sunnis and Persian Shias have one common interest: the destruction of Israel. And since the Iranians have made several statements to the effect that they will destroy Israel if they get the Bomb, look at the situation from Riyadh’s point of view.
1) The Shia Heretics get the Bomb, and Destroy Israel. The Sons of Pigs and Dogs die. And either the Great Satan or the Zionist Entity destroys them for the action.
or
2) The Zionist Entity of the Great Satan destroy the Shia Heretics as a religious, political or military force before they get the Bomb.
From the Sunni Arab leadership’s point of view, worst case scenario is that one hated group is killed, and best case is that 2 go the way of the Dodo.
I can see why they would be trying to muddy the waters, and buy Iran time to finish the Bomb. Sunnis are no higher than #2 on Iran’s “Use Nukes on Today” List, and they are betting that Iran won’t get to, or past, #1.
Besides, I have never seen much evidence of rational thought coming out of the Sunni Arabs in my admittedly short life.
I second the question from free speech girlie. Is anyone organising a free speech demo?
Twould be a great thing to turn up for. Let’s really bang the drum for this.
Verity,
“when the UN Security Council gets round to considering what form of sanctions to impose on Iran, guess to whom chairmanship of the Council will have passed. You’ve got it… plucky little Denmark.”
It always pays to get the opposition on the wrong foot,when Denmark takes the chair,it will be discredited in the eyes of the Muslim word,the debate will be on the validity,authority and ipartiality of the chair of the SC.
That is quite some weight off Iran.
I hear you, Ron Brick and Eric Sivula. In a rational world, that would have undoubtedly have been a clever move.
But, come on! We are discussing the least rational, most excitable, most superstitious people in the world here. If what you say is correct, they would have to have planned this with malice aforethought and I just do not think they are capable of such subtlety.
Certainly, the presence of hundreds of Danish flags points the finger of suspicion, but I these people automatically think of flag burning when they are rioting mode. They love it. I certainly agree that they got them shipped out PDQ, but I do not believe it was with a long term strategy.
Also, the SC is the chief refuge of the whiners and seethers. Would they really want it discredited? Or is that too subtle?
If both you gentlement are right, I wouldn’t be overwhelmed with amazement, but I still don’t believe you are.
Verity, Joshua:
Thanks for the praise.
The tee-shirt production issue is a long unsolved one (probably as old as my Che Guevara with mickey mouse ears design). One day, hopefully, I’ll find a way to market my goodies as a good capitalist. But for the moment, no luck. Sorry.
It wouldn’t be that hard to make a rudimentary Danish flag at home, using some white cloth, wax and red food colouring. You wouldn’t notice the difference on TV – it all burns the same way.
Regardless, these guys clearly have a lot of time on their hands.
And I hope that you are right, Verity. I would love for all of the foes of the West in the Muslim world to be as bright as sacks of camel dung, but I fear that is not the case.
I am just trying to envision how a smart person would use kitman. A smart, if not rational, Sunni Despot would play up this event. It lets him vent some of the “Arab Street’s” rage at a new Western target. It earns him some credit with the rabid imams, who might be preaching that he is not worthy of ruling his little pile of sand. It allows him to paint himself as standing up to the Satans of the West without having to worry about a bombing. It allows the Despot to paint himself as a strong horse, and ease tensions in his own country. If you are cagey enough to survive as a Sunni Despot, you will see that play.
“If” it helps the Iranians get the Bomb, that also serves the Sunni Despot’s ends. The heretics will get blown up by the Zionists or Americans before or after they kill Israel.
Encouraging the street to riot over Denmark is a safe bet for the Despot in any regard.
No nation has ever been served well by assuming that their foes are entirely stupid. So I do not assume that the Islamists are stupid. Irrational? Sure, but not stupid. And not all of our foes in the Muslim world are Islamists, some are various breeds of secular authoritarians. And besides, if you expect all your foes to collude against you, you will be better prepared when only *some* of them are working together. Right?
No US papers that I am aware of have run the cartoons. Reading the Sunday papers, you’d likely miss the issue entirely: the Sunday NYT gives the story 10 paragraphs at the bottom of page 5, while the front page consists of 6 articles: three features (Betty Freiden, diabetic brothers, and a rewards programs for school attendance), and three news stories (Iran, house demolition in New Orleans, and the daily things are going to shit in Iraq). The Sunday Chicago Trib buries the story at the bottom of page 9.
Oh, and Chelsea still sucks no matter the final score.
There has been an unexpectedly robust response to the cartoon affair here in France, ie in the heart of the axis of weasels. One of “our” most distinguished and erudite journalists, Alexandre Adler, said on national radio on Friday morning “Make no mistake about it: we are at war with Fundamentalist Islam. And who are we? We are those heirs of the Judeo-Christian tradition, those atheists who cling to Enlightenment values and the vast majority of European Muslims who would be the principal victims of this deadly ideology”
Where do all the Danish flags come from?
From the bloody TV crews
APL,
Probably,I wish we could prove it!
And what do you think about this twist?
Suggestions for Islamic Reform:
* Pipe in the Cartoon Network across Muslim countries. Once they get a dose of the Looney Tunes or Angry Beavers, they’ll loosen up.
* Teach citizens to read and then let them read some science books.
* Ask them to explain how they can burn embassies and consulates over a cartoon but revel in raising their children as suicide bombers.
Welcome to Democracy Achmed.
Does anyone know if any US newspapers have run the cartoons?
I don’t know about newspapers but they have been shown briefly on major network evening news shows. Also TV news people describe them in words; is this considered offensive to Muslims as well? 🙂
I’m still hoping this is a minority view in Islam but my patience with them is wearing thin.
This is what we can expect from Blair’s Storm Troopers if WE protest!
Ron Brick writes:
” This is what we can expect from Blair’s Storm Troopers if WE protest!”
Thanks for the link – a timely reminder, indeed!
Rod Liddle has some interesting reflections on the subject of free speech in the Sunday Times today.
Mostly discussing the recent Nick Griffin case, he recounts an apparent confession by an officer of West Yorkshire police that the order to harass had come from ‘on high’ – and he clearly meant Westminster.
I think we must assume the same is true of the disgusting action taken against the hunt protesters and the complete, supine surrender to islamofascism displayed in London, last week.
It seems perfectly clear that at some point in the past few years we have crossed the borderline and now live in a police state, in which the police are under the direct control of the ruling junta.
Seasoned Class Warriors will, no doubt, say that much the same was true during the Miners’ strike, but the degree and extent are quite different.
Yes, GCooper, I caught that, too. The police called on BNP activist Paul Cromie and seeing them coming, he had the prudence to switch on his tape recorder. As the police rifled through his things, one officer is heard to say: ““At the end of the day this whole thing should be . . . well, it’s very political. It’s not coming from senior police. It’s coming from much higher than that,”.
TBlair who set about turning Britain into a police state the minute he slithered under the door of Downing St. He and Cherie. That’s why they had bully Alastair Campbell. His job was to frighten the press, and he did, and they allowed themselves to be faced down by a thug.
Now, eight years on, they’re weeing their knickers at the idea of printing some highly innocuous illustrations of a religious leader from the Dark Ages. And, oh! he unctuousness of their excuses. Their lofty camouflage as “maturity”. What they’re really saying is: “We’re frit.”
I cannot say often enough how wonderful I think Mr Rasmussen is. He’s a hero. He has stood by the free press although I am certain he has received probably hundreds of death threats.
And the brave words of Queen Margrethe. These people really are too fine. I am really, really glad that we paid them millions in Danegeld 600 or 700 years ago. They totally deserved it – just for being so bold.
The willingness of the government to trample underfoot the people of England,whilst grovelling to those who threaten us with death,makes it obvious that the Blair regime has a t some point given up on the people of this island and have decided to cultivate a new constituency.
I have to agree with Verity – the stark contrast between the bravery of the Danish position and the crawling, cringing, fawning of the British media and government is profound.
I’ve not very often had cause to feel truly ashamed of this country – but I do now. In fact I am disgusted by what so many of us seem to have become.
Ron Brick
Nope, wrong there Ron. There never was a day when the Blair regime had the interests of the people of England in mind. His aim has always been to destroy this country.
GCooper,
This is the left’s baby,they have decided to elect a new people,they are not craven,theyare simply on the other side.
I’m a bit perplexed as to why so many people feel that it is inappropriate to offer any level of apology (not for “our” Danish free press of course) but for the fact that many Moslems are upset.
They are obviously freaking. And I am personally sorry (in an abstract way as I don’t know any) that some sincere Moslems are upset.
Of course at the same time I would explain to them (as one explains to a cultural beginner) that it is our tradition to let everyone speak, even fools, and that they should get used to even more and maybe worse hurtful talk.
Why can’t we do both?
1. Acknowledge their “pain”
and
2. Explain that they will probably feel even more pain, unless they accept that free speech is part of what we in the West do and unless they stop their provocations such as bombing trains, buildings etc etc.
It probably won’t reach the true hard-core kooks but it may have some influence with the “moderates.” It may not be effective but I can’t see that it hurts.
As Bill Buckley suggest:
“Apologize for profaning Islam, but do not use language that conveys an apology for the laws of the land, which uphold a free press.”
Pete,
I was giving him the benefit of the doubt,the only thing I cannot work out what is the reward for a man of his cupidity.
Interestingly,we talk about 7th century fanatics,but we never acknowledge this country is mis-governed by 19th century fanatical class warriors
Raw Data Complex,
Who is this “we”,what the hell has any of this to do with this country?
We all seem to value free speech and agree that it is a fundamental basis of our freedom and society. The issue is no loger the content of what was published, but the appaling way in which Muslims reacted. They are free to disagree, another freedom that we provide for them, but no rational or sane person can believe that the cartoons are THS serious. They BURNED three embassies to the ground which are soverien soil of the contries in question. This could easily be construed as an act of war. It is insane! Lots of people have, in my opinion, very disturbed and insulting views but that is thier right! Calling for wide scale slaughter of non-Muslims on the basis of a couple of pictures which may brake some obscure law in a book written thousands of years ago is beyond any rationality. They live in our country and enjoy the freedoms we provide, with our soldiers blood and this is our repayment for it? Why are we kidding ourselves? These are dangerous people! It seems that the basis for this action must be dangerous as well. It is similar to someone knifing someone else for insulting them. None of us condone that, i hope? These people cannot be allowed to cause any more distuction and death because of the misguided beliefs
fh
RDC writes:
“I’m a bit perplexed as to why so many people feel that it is inappropriate to offer any level of apology (not for “our” Danish free press of course) but for the fact that many Moslems are upset.”
What business is it of a Moslem in Syria, or Egypt, or anywhere but in Denmark, what is published in a Danish newspaper?
As for Moslems in Denmark, they have an easy remedy. Leave.
Pete_London – thank you very much! This demonstrates the level of hopeless ignorance and understanding of democracy even by muzzies who live in the democratic West. They just don’t get it. You explain and explain and wait for a response, and they say “yes, but it is forbidden to depict the prophet”. They are brainwashed from birth. By the time they are 10, their little brains are clamped shut. The more I read their moronic total misapprehension of the West, even by those living in the West and even after it is described for them in words of one syllable spoken v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y the more convinced I become that there can be no co-existence in one country under one law.
In the letter, the Danish imams, living in Denmark, think the prime minister was lying when he said he has no control over the press.
Raw Data Complex – or may I call you Bill Clinton? – explain why the Danes should apologise for someone else’s ignorance. If people are ignorant, that is not the responsibilitiy of anyone except themselves and their parents. This letter was from a Danish imam who doesn’t understand democracy or Denmark and is proposing to impose shariah law on the Danish press. Even more stupid is, he doesn’t understand the character of the people he is living among.
And they are all like this. Even people you think are intelligent and worldly and have been educated in the West – underneath, if you get into a discussion, they all come up with exactly the same points some pig ignorant little peasant cooking over a camel dung fire would come up with.
And all those Islamics who marched in Britain, thinking they were like reeeeely reeeeely scareee – even though many were born in Britain, they do not understand British law. They went to school in Britain and they don’t understand democracy. I have noticed this before among Islamics. Their little minds are totally shut. When you make your points, they nod, and then say something so stupid it beggars belief.
This makes the achievements of Aayan Hirsi Ali and Irshad (can’t remember her last name) in Toronto all the more absolutely staggering. All this makes me realise how totally awesome these two are.
Pete_London, yes of course Tony Blair (and Cherie – she’s a big part of all this) intended to destroy Britain from day one. It was obvious from day one for anyone with eyes to see.
GCooper: I was ashamed of the Septic Isle over 30 years ago when I decided that there were better places to spend my only life. The UK may have prospered since then, you might be inclined to believe. Better believe in the amount of debt per capita which will inevitably bring the house-of-cards crashing & civil strife you are just beginning to experience. All the warning signs have been ignored, you have imported problems with which you now cannot…or are too gutless to deal with. Only concerned with your rights & to hell with the responsibilities of protecting the brilliant heritage thousands of your forebears gave you.
Yes, there’s good reason to feel ashamed for being led like sheep to the slaughter. Cry the bloody country.
I have realised an interesting and recuring theme. Al the muslims i have talked to are never willing to justify what they do. they inflict draconian and barbaric traditions on their offspring without thought. They have been brainwashed into blind obedience. They are all opposed to any form of sexual pleasure or expression for females at all. In many ways its unbelieveablt that the mothers would ever inflict that on their children. This brings up the next issue of the complete dominance of males in the islamic world. What is even more amazing is that female muslims stand up for the brutal treatment they recieve. It is a sad thought that such a large portion of the worlds population live like this
permanent expat – it’s painful to agree that you are right. Britain has sold itself down the river. And has compounded it by voting for the Chocolate Orange Inspector as probably the next prime minister.
The only sane opposing voice in all this violence is Derek Davis, who ought to be leading the Tories. I don’t believe the Tories will turn out to vote for David Cameron. Let us see what Derek Davis accomplishes. He is experienced and wily enough to know where the traps are. He is a worthy man to lead Britain, but the British themselves denied him this chance because they were in the mood for a Chocolate Orange Inspector.
Verily Verity, I was trying to suggest the non-apology apology in which the speaker expresses sympathy for the feelings/traits of another without taking responsibility…as one might offer “I’m sorry that you have hurt feelings” or “I’m sorry that your reading comprehension is low.”
I agree with you entirely that there is no need — quite the contrary — to apologize for free press. But I can’t see what is lost by offering sympathy for _their_ feelings, which are entirely _their_ responsibility.
We are indeed in a clash of civilizations and we should choose our battles carefully. I don’t think that the cartoons offer strategic high ground from which to pursue a cultural war in which the ultimate struggle is for the mind of the Muslim moderate.
Raw Data Complex,
Do that and you will be sorry for ever and a day
Ron Brick,
What do you intend by “Do that and you will be sorry for ever and a day.”
It’s far too cryptic for this forum.
Bill Clinton – But I can’t see what is lost by offering sympathy for _their_ feelings, which are entirely _their_ responsibility.
Because they don’t understand the subtle distinction and it thereby loses its point? They think it’s real? And ramp up to the next project?
Because drawing a line in the sand is the way people win, not by retreating by inches of amused subtlety?
You write: I agree with you entirely that there is no need — quite the contrary — to apologize for free press.
Uh-huh. Yet you’re proposing it. What am I missing here?
RDC writes:
“I don’t think that the cartoons offer strategic high ground from which to pursue a cultural war in which the ultimate struggle is for the mind of the Muslim moderate.”
It would be very helpful if someone could produce credible estimates (a proportion would do) of these ‘moderate’ Moslems.
I’m sure they must exist (I’m equally sure many other Moslems would claim they are not Moslems at all), but when the views of ‘moderates’ are examined – one thinks of the mendacious toad, Sacranie – they really don’t seem very ‘moderate’ at all.
When the much-vaunted ‘Arab St’ starts lynching wannabe suicide bombers and the psychopaths who hang teenage girls from cranes in the market square because they had the audacity to get raped, then I will start believing there is a substantial ‘moderate’ Moslem opinion.
Pending that, I’ll continue to regard it as a mental illness and its adherents as no less in need of treatment than any other victims of a dangerous cult.
RDC,
Hardly,there are some smart folk on here.
I do hope you will say sorry for my offence at being threatened with death……while you are at it comiserate with me for not winning the lottery this week…oh and anything else I can think of?
From Spiegel Online : A German journalist, Jürgen Gottschlich, living in Istanbul (where I suppose it doesn’t pay to be too contentious either) reports that “many Muslims are sick & tired of being unfairly labelled as bin Laden sympathizers”
I am sure they are, and quite rightly so. I am ready to believe, although I would prefer to be “res non verba” convinced, that many Muslims in the UK feel the same way. Should this really be the case, I am puzzled that they haven’t kicked out the extremists & trouble-makers in their midst…..or have they become so “British” that they have also become sheep?
The problem with establishing the views of the moderate muslim is that whenver a group of muslims do anything, their leaders claim it is the action of a small splinter group.
Im afraid we have reached a watershead. We must now consider the actions of the islamic community the actions of the majority and act accordingly. I am afraid were that may lead up, but there comes a time when you must stand by your principles and fight for them if need be.
Here is a leader in today’s Telegraph – admittedly only one paragraph because you can go and read the whole thing for yourself, but the money quote:
This newspaper has a deep regard for Islam, that purest and most abstract of the monotheistic faiths, to whose tenets we recently dedicated a series of colour supplements. We share the admiration of Rousseau, Carlyle and Gibbon for the Prophet, which is why, on grounds of courtesy, we have chosen not to cause gratuitous offence to his followers by reproducing the cartoons at the centre of this row.
The cartoons were so humourless they could almost have been Scandinavian – oh, wait a minute! Those people in northern Europe standing alone in defence of a free press? Certainly, if the cartoons had been in an English newspaper, they would have been wittier and more pointed. But, they weren’t. And never will be. Because the Vikings aren’t cowards and the English are. They allowed Tony Blair’s government to take all their rights away from them, and they allowed a police state, where what strongman Tony Blair wants, happens policewise. One of the first things Anthony Blair did was, stop the police from swearing an oath of loyalty to the Queen – the Queen meaning the state. Didn’t that alert anyone what he was up to?
It certainly alerted me.
Telegraph: You morons – do you think readers are so naive they don’t know that you run “a series of colour supplements” not decause the editor had a rush of enthusiasm for kidnappings, beheadings, clitorectomies, hangings of homosexuals and stonings, but because the advertising department can make bags of money from Muslim countries swimming in oil and they sincerely believe they are buying influence and your advertising department has encouraged this? And then you delivered on it?
Interesting and disgusting that the prophet is capitalised, as though there has ever only been one and the reader will naturally be drawn to think of Mohammad instead of say, Richard Branson, who has certainly been a prophet of the future of air travel.
The Telegraph (thanks to Verity for the quote) says:
“…that purest and most abstract of the monotheistic faiths, to whose tenets we recently dedicated a series of colour supplements.”
What utter, total nonsense. One can only conclude that the decline in education in this country has reached such a nadir that the editorial staff of the Daily Telegraph are – how can I best put this in a mild and understated way? – as thick as pigshit.
Churchill had the mark of Islam – he knew what it represented: a benighted, purblind curtailment of the human spirit.
A week after Michael Wharton’s death and already the Telegraph has forgotten.
What vile, miserable, little people they are.
Is this the same Telegraph that Charles Moore writes for? (excuse the grammar…..I was so taken aback) With such colleagues perhaps he should find another berth. But then so what. Like the rest of the UK, most newspapers are at the hairy end of the lavatory brush.
purest and most abstract of the monotheistic faiths
Agreed, utter rot. Isn’t Islam rather a mish-mash of Christianity, Judaism and pre-islamic Arabian religion, at least to the non-believer? And most abstract when it dictates every mortal thing? And Gibbon? I recall he admired this self-styled prophet for his, ahem, chutzpah. Gibbon didn’t particularly care for religion, and there’s a definite scoff, writing about the Battle of Tours, in his counterfactual “Perhaps the interpretation of the Qur’an would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Muhammed.”
John the Evangelist is far more abstract than the Koran, never mind Karl Rahner.
Indeed, the Song of Solomon is more abstract than the Koran, if we’re going to have an Abrahamic pissing contest…
Having gone through three bottles of Optrex just to read this far on related threads-
I’m speechless!
Other than that —
Go V&G!!
If you want abstract try Revelations.
Ian,
there’s a definite scoff
Yes, but isn’t Gibbon mocking Christianity as much as Islam in that passage–each for supposing itself other than an historical contingency.
For a summary of who has said what, (see my (very) embryonic blog)
Some surprising comments …
Sometimes stuff happens that makes you sit up and re-evaluate your priorities. I think this is one of those moments.
Good to see that sexual equality has finally come to Islam – at least in some respects,
Of course, they could have learned from Michael Jackson and just be 3 men dressed up as women. Even Islam must have it’s fair share of transvestites I would guess.
It seems to me that the gross difference in treatment of the hunting protesters and the Islamist protesters must lead to the final and total loss of trust in the police. They are apparently now unarguably the military wing of Nulabour. I suggest they should be referred to as the ‘blueshirts’.
I sincerely hope that the armed services have not been indoctrinated. We need a fall back solution.
Arrest the Blairs, both of them for treason.
An observation; Will those newspapers that have started to refer to Mohammed as the ‘Prophet’ Mohammed now start referring to ‘Our Lord, Jesus’?
An anecdote; the chatter amongst my fellow office-workers has finally moved away from Big Brother to the Cartoon Wars. This is the forst time i can remember a political story being discussed earnestly since 7/7. Excellent news.
However, one of our (rather delicious) young graduates kept referring to Mohammed as ‘the Prophet Mohammed, Peace be upon Him’. I asked her why she referred to him in such a way, given that given she is about as Muslim as Jodie Marsh.
He reply was shocking. She read Political History at a London University and they teach their students always to refer to Mohammed in this way. It hadn’t even occurred to her how ridiculous she sounded.
John Rippengal
Two quick things:
I listened to Ian Collins’ current affairs phone-in show on TalkSport while working this morning. A 63 year man called in and described how his car was surrounded and attacked on Marylebone Road on Friday, with racist and religious threats made. He called the police but as soon as the operator realised that muslims were attacking the car she said there was nothing they could do. He protested, said he was petrified and they’re threatening to kill him. She said ‘I’m ending this call now’ and the phone went dead.
Following this a producer at TalkSport got onto the Met but only managed to get a pre-prepared statement from them. It states that anyone can make a complaint about the nature of the protest on Friday. Ever so helpfully, it explains you can go into any police station or approach any police officer on the street (what’s one of those?) to do this. The statement adds that all complaints will be investigated fully.
So there you go. In effect the Met has admitted that when muslim men dress as suicide bombers and hundreds of placards threatening murder are flaunted under the noses of the Met, nothing will be done unless complaints are received. Criminal, threatening behaviour is given a free pass because of who is doing it.
Ian Blair must go. His force were nothing more than accomplices to the demonstrators on Friday. He has not only allowed the Met to become politicised, he has played an active role in making it happen. Can anyone doubt he was appointed specifically to do this? Even the ranks of the terminally dim and unaware were appalled by the inaction of the Met.
Can demands for information be made under the Freedom of Information Act concerning the policing of the demonstration? I’m thinking of instruction from the Home Office and Blairs office down the ranks. I’m not too familiar with the working of the FOI but although I know that requests can be made can I also assume that ‘for security reasons’ I’ll receive back a blank sheet of paper? Any thoughts?
Pete,
Your account does not surprise me. Hitler had his Blackshirts and his Brownshirts. Blairs have their Blueshirts. You had better be careful what you say if you live in Britain; I don’t.
I think you have this quite the wrong way round. The threat to liberty is in this case not the government, it is a bunch of neo-fascist religious extremists bent on imposing their sordid will upon the nation. Just as the Nazis did not speak for all or even most Germans, so the lunatic fringe of Islam does not not speak for all or even most Moslems, BUT in each case they demonstrate a confidence and determination that the other side(s) lack, and this is often enough to swing it.
Continuing to demonise the state when the true threat comes from organisations which don’t like our state and indeed exploit weakness in it is only going to distract attention from the real issues.
EG
Oh there you are Euan, defending the state true to form. I’ll take it you’re happy to have a politicised police force then. One which cracks the skulls of pro-hunting protestors, one which questions an elderly couple for 80 minutes for wishing to leave pro-Christian literature in a town hall next to existing pro-homosexuality literature and one which arrests a man for calling a police horse gay.
I’ll believe that Friday’s demonstrators represent the ‘lunatic fringe of Islam’ when the rest of them offer counter demonstrations. Don’t you think that much-trumpeted ‘decent majority’ of muslims are proving to be pretty damned elusive in reality? Where the hell are they?
Same old Euan, always credulous.
As usual, Laban Tall gets to the heart of the matter.
Eursoc(Link)
“Much of the outcry involved the police’s decision not to arrest those marchers carrying signs which were clearly incitement to violence. The police did, reportedly, caution several passers-by who complained about the hate march. Indeed, the police arrested two men on Friday – both of whom were counter-protesting by handing out leaflets.
Some reports suggest that the men – neither of whom is British – were carrying illustrations of Mohammed. If this is the case, then yes, they needed locked up both for their own safety (the idiots)”
Id love to know more about those guys, maybe buy em a beer or 2.
For those steaming up with indignant rage, take time to read this interesting post from the MPAC(Link) home page. It may surprise you.
The real tragedy is the police’s refusal to arrest the demonstrators. By their pathetic and cowardly action they harm the many Muslims in this country who found this rabble equally abhorrent.
Pommygranate – Yes, I have noticed The Telegraph at least is now referring to the prophet Mohammad. Either The Times or The Guardian – can’t remember – capitalises the P. As this thing escalates, I guarantee they will start adding PBUH. It won’t matter because the Muslims have already triumphed and are the boss of the British press. Who cares how much further they abase themselves?
The always charming and rational Omar Bakri is calling for “the cartoonist” to be executed. Don’t these people do anything except issue threats and work themselves up into a moronic lather? He kept referring to “the cartoonist” apparently unaware, after five months, that there were 12 bloody cartoonists – the ignorant nit. I have a strong suspicion that he cannot read English.
Mass reverse immigration,please. All those who came forward angrily to protest the primitive behaviour of their co-religionists can stay. Oh, wait a minute …
So let me get this straight… the state, who a few days ago came within a hairs breadth of passing a law that would have made Samizdata publishing the ‘Satanic Cartoons’ and about 20% of the comments written here in the last week illegal because they said nasty things about Islam and stirred up religious animosity, this same state is NOT a threat to our freedom of expression and liberty? In effect you are saying just because the state tried to do what the Muslim protesters were demanding (i.e. make ‘doing a Jyllands-Posten’ in Britain illegal), we should not feel the state is a threat to our freedom of expression?
As disingenuous as ever Mr. Gray
pommygranate writes:
“…they harm the many Muslims in this country who found this rabble equally abhorrent.”
Forgive me, but I find it impossible to take anything the MPAC says as representative of anything at all but a small caucus of Moslem opinion.
Neither do I find your reflexive use of the term ‘many Muslims’ at all reassuring. As I said earlier – how many? We simply have no way of knowing. And the mere fact that Birmingham or Halifax aren’t actually on fire this afternoon is no guide at all.
As we know from experience of the 1930s, fanatics can gain power if majority opinion, while not being exactly fanatical itself, is broadly in sympathy.
In such a perilous situation as we appear to be in, we need reliable information – not pious platitudes and the sort of reassurances offered by the very liberals who created this mess in the first place.
To w.ks@mac.com who sent me an email asking if I would accept anti-semitic cartoons to “even things out” – you Muslims have an extremely short attention span and I am assuming this is a genetic defect from marrying your first cousins since the dawn of history.
This has been addressed about 572 times over the last couple of days. Yes. We would accept anti-semitic cartoons in the name of free speech, although they would sicken us. We have seen the disgusting anti-semitic cartoons that are regularly published in that haven of civilisation, the Middle East. We have seen drawings of pigs and money with Jewish facial features. We have seen the cartoon of the Israeli prime minister eating an Arab baby. Offensive, but in the same way a young child will be offensive, thinking it’s being rather clever.
Why don’t you trawl through the internet and see some really offensive cartoons of the Paedophile Mohammad? There are some truly funny ones. Contact me by email if you want addresses where you can see these for your viewing pleasure.
GCooper – read the comments section. There are the ususal rants about ‘death to the infidel’ but the vast majority express anger and horror at the demonstrators.
What is interesting is that there is a total lack of understanding that freedom of speech means freedom to offend.
I suspect that part of the problem for most people on this site is our lack of knowledge about these mysterious ‘moderate Muslims’. Reading their websites can at least give you some flavour (and assuming that it’s probably the more radical ones that comment on websites)
pommygranate – re the MPAC link – colour me surprised. Is it just a cunning ploy or do you think they mean it?
If you had a choice between that and theocracy, which would you pick?
And there’s no point retorting that what you want is a liberal small state system, because that isn’t on the table and it isn’t going to be. Of the available options, which is the worst?
Hardly. Again, which is the BIGGER threat, do you think? It’s necessary to deal with the most immediate danger first.
Furthemore, it would be sensible to distinguish between the threat posed by the state per se and the threat posed by the political ideology that happens to form the current government – the two are not the same.
EG
Perry will probably reprimand me again, but I found this quite cheering: (Link)
This too (Link)
pommygranate writes:
“There are the ususal rants about ‘death to the infidel’ but the vast majority express anger and horror at the demonstrators.”
Oh, I grant you there are some. But that isn’t what I was asking, is it?
Until and unless there are some practical demonstrations that mainstream Moslem opinion in the UK is anti-islamist (and, yes, we’ve had all the ‘why should they?’ arguments, I know) then I’ll remain unconvinced that we have any idea of the truth.
If ‘moderate’ Moslem opinion is as you seem to be suggesting, why is it that there isn’t a single Islamic nation on Earth with what one might fairly describe as a Western-style open government? And, please, don’t even think of suggesting Turkey.
Why assume that the majority of Moslems in this country, given their druthers, wouldn’t support just the sort of system their co-religionists have created everywhere else?
Actually, GCooper, there is Malaysia. Common law, open courts, freedom of religion as in, on Fridays, the traffic police turn a blind eye to triple parking outside the mosques, even when it inconveniences other traffic. OTOH, on Sunday, they are equally myopic to triple parking and parking up on curbs outside the churches. Christmas day is a public holiday and Muslims in the office shake your hand and wish you “Happy Christmas”. Christmas decorations go up in the stores for a few days. Chinese New Year is also a holiday, and Muslim co-workers offer “Gong Xi Fa Cai” to their Chinese colleagues.
I have been reading discouraging news, though. The new prime minister seems to be taking the country into a less secular mode and some MPs are calling for their primitive sharia to replace Common Law. But as of now, it’s the Islamic Republic of Malaysia but it’s a very relaxed Islamic republic.
Actually, GCooper’s point about “given their druthers” is interesting.
GCooper – you’re making a quantum leap. My point was simply that if you read the Muslim websites, the vast majority seem to think the demonstrators a bunch of nutters.
Wrong, because it is in fact the same threat. Muslims in Britain cannot force me to change what I do on Samizdata. They can threaten me (and they have) but I am willing to take my chances. However intolerant Muslims have a much better chance of stopping me doing thing they do not like if they can get the state to threaten me (i.e. pass a law) on their behalf because the state has more power at its disposal. They very nearly got their wish a few days ago and but for the Lord’s amendments…
Wrong again. Until we have some form of written constitutional protection similar to the First Amendment in the US, there is always the threat that the state may decide to make this or that aspect of free expression illegal. It is not just Blairites (of either party) such as yourself who are the problem, it is the fact such powers are readily available to the state in the first place that is the real problem.
Euan G,
You ask which of a theocracy or a politcised police force is the worst. The problem is Euan that with a politicised police force of the current colour you could end up with both.
You also make the point that the ‘State’ is not the same as the present political party who govern us.
Quite but it was you who introduced the word state.
Classic “false dichotomy.” Even if we buy that there are two separate threats here (and Perry makes a convincing case that they are in fact the same threat), there is still no reason to suspect that we can’t fix them both at the same time. There is, in fact, even a fable about precisely this kind of danger – something about the horses and the men wanting to fight the wolves, so the horses allowed the men on their backs on the promise that the men would stop riding them after the wolves had been beaten. But of course, the men broke their promise and stayed master of the horse. Something like that. I think I heard it in elementary school, which is where one learns this kind of lesson.
Something very similar happened in Germany in the 30s. To fend off an “impending marxist revolution” (fabricated, in this case, but never mind), the public was told to accept emergency powers for Mr. Hitler – powers which, of course, he never gave back.
Be careful what you wish for, Euan. If you let the police erode your liberties away now in the name of fighting the muslim threat, you may find them unwilling to give them back when the threat has passed.
pommygranate
Stop being so gullible. Look, there is no such thing as moderate islam, only islam. The MPAC is merely a PR body for islam in Europe and the West. What do you think MPAC stands for? Read about what MPAC is and what it’s aims are. I can’t even be bothered to go to the MPAC site, I’ve done that before and know that the usual anti-samitic, pro-caliphate articles and opinions abound. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Pete_London
Look, there is no such thing as moderate islam, only islam
Wrong, blinkered and ignorant.
True enough in principle, but back in the real world I would argue that if you wish to neutralise the Islamist threat you will need the force of the state on YOUR side. If you have a weak and ineffective state, then you cannot use it to this end. You can argue that in such a case neither can the Islamist use it to pass laws in his favour, but I don’t think that amounts to much of an argument – if the Islamists will happily burn, riot, threaten and intimidate into submission those who object, then they don’t particularly need the state on their side.
Since the concept of the rule of law is plainly somewhat alien to the Islamist radicals, it is largely academic as far as they are concerned just how intrusive and regulating the state is – that’s just one way of doing things, but clearly it isn’t the only way they’ll consider.
However, if you want to oppose them, you DO need the force of the state.
As has been observed before, a written constitution is no guarantee of anything beyond having some words typed onto a sheet of paper. Constitutions can be and over time almost always are changed or circumvented. The American written constitution has not prevented the huge growth of the American state – not least, because this growth is the same thing that has happened in almost all western states for reasons that are entirely unconncected with whether or not the consitution is written or tacit.
Neat evasion.
Which is worst? Which is the most immediate and dangerous threat? Shouldn’t THAT threat be dealt with first, then the other one?
Indeed, because the state is routinely lambasted here as the fount of all wickedness – but in THIS case it’s pretty much the only thing that has the potential to get you out of the hole.
EG
True, but it is arguably easier to correct an over-mighty law enforcement system under ultimate parliamentary control than it is to deal with a theocratic thugocracy. Don’t you think?
EG
No, pommygranate. Pete_London is correct.
Islam is a warrior, conquering cult and it’s very effective. Women are reduced to blobs. Men can marry several – plus take slave girls. Why? For breeding future warriors. Women have no rights because they’re not full human beings. They’re wombs. Clitorectomies are to keep women in line, as is wife beating. Women cannot attend prayers in the mosques.
Even in “paradise”, the men seem to go to a separate area.
And now all the good little warriors are in Britain and Europe trying to take over. It happened quickly because of their taqqya and kitman and a gullible west. One tiny demand, one tiny concessession at a time. Now they’ve worked up to being able to call for the death of Britain on British streets and the cowed dhimmis do nothing. Why? Because they’re so tolerant? No, because they are so scared.
I have absolute contempt for the British papers, but Alastair Campbell demonostrated very effectively for around four years that they could be intimidated easily. There were interested eyes observing all this, you know.
No, beacuse your whole position is one long evasion as we are not faced with choosing between a theocratic thugocracy and anything else. The Muslim theocratic fantasists cannot impose their values on me unless the British state does it for them because it is cheaper to repress me than them because I am unlikely to blow myself up on a bus to register my displeasure whereas they just might.
Likewise, if all the state did was maintain a modicum of order and prevent violence by dangerous thugs, be they islamic or anything else, then a discussion on ‘does the state have enough power’ might be appropriate. Yet we are currently in a situation where the state has enormous power not just to use the cops to run some jihadis out of town but to close off whole areas of free expression because it is less inconvenient to do that than have to deal with turbulent Muslim thugs (i.e. they, like you, are unprincipled utilitarians).
The notion you of all people are defending any form of liberty other than the ‘liberty’ of the state to regulate everything is laughable.
Poomygranate
You have alot of learning to do. What happened in London on Friday was not a surprise to me, was not shocking to me and was not a wake up call to me. TWENTY YEARS AGO I heard all this. I heard it in football teams and colleges from muslims I grew up with in east London. Twenty years ago I heard that Britain is nothing, that islam will take over the world, the allah’s will is everything. Twenty years ago there were islamic stalls set up at one end of Walthamstow High Street, manned by islamists, groaning under the weight of islamic propoganda and manned by islamists fierce in their mission to convert.
I noticed your comment on the Ablution that non-muslims will ‘recoil in horror’ at Omar Bakri’s comments on Radio 4. Oh really? You may have recoiled in horror and even ended up wetting your prissy little knickers, but don’t project your sensibilities onto people with a more robust constitution and don’t you dare tell me that I’m ignorant of islam. I’ve seen more of it than you ever will.
You will be soon enough, I think.
I frankly don’t give a damn about theoretical freedoms or hypothetical liberty. I am concerned, however, with the practical liberty of people to live their lives more or less as they please within the limits chosen by society – liberty without limit being merely licence.
It is because of that that I consider the patchy and uneven application of often silly laws by a semi-competent state FAR less of a threat than the desire of a fanatical bunch of fundamentalists to impose their narrow view of society upon everyone else. Our liberal western society is weak in its own defence and does lack confidence in the rightness of its world view, whereas the same cannot be said of the Islamists – indeed, bin Laden himself has apparently said in the past that one of the things he most despised about the west was its weakness and inability to stand for what it pretended to believe in.
I therefore see them as a danger greater by far than our secular state, however instrusive it may be.
EG
pommygranate- one other thing.
If you’re going to come back to tell me I’m wrong then don’t bother. I’ve been told that I’m wrong about islam by people like you for twenty years. I’ve been told that I’m wrong, I’m ignorant, that islam is a religion of peace, that the extremists are a minority, that I must be a racist, that I’m being alarmist. Well it’s twenty years since I first saw islam close up and hated it, more and more people are waking up to the evil we’ve allowed into our country and every passing day sees me more convinced than ever before that I was right.
Pete
“There are no moderates in Islam”
That is plain ignorant. Just because you have heard aggressive talk from some Muslims over the years does not mean that all Muslims want to establish a Caliphate in Europe.
However, reading comments from people like yourself will attract many more to the cause. I have worked with many Muslims over the years, not one of which would give idiots like Omar Bakri the time of day.
Well of course you do. If these guys did not exist, you would have to invent them. There is nothing quite like a scary bunch of very real people calling for blood curdling things and threatening to abridge our liberty to justify people like you taking ‘sensible measures’ to abridge our liberty in the name of security/respect/practicality or whatever. It is a time honoured tactic of the apologists of repression. I cannot say you surprise me.
“in the real world I would argue that if you wish to neutralise the Islamist threat you will need the force of the state on YOUR side.”
In which case we are knackered because tje State is most patently and obviously not on our side,that is our bone on contention!
No, Pommygranate, it is you who doesn’t get it.
If a Muslim is a Muslim, he necessarily has the belief that the whole world MUST become Dar-es-Salaam. It must. Because allah wills it. Either peacefully or by the sword.
They believe that everyone is born Muslim. Yes, I know this is totally bonkers, but in an Islamic context, what else is new? Therefore, by leaving Islam, we have offended allah. We have to be brought back into the fold, by the sword if necessary. Geddit? This is why they don’t speak of people “converting” to Islam – but reverting.
I have met very civilised, calm, rational Muslims. Good sense of humour. Don’t drink themselves but will happily order a drink for you. BUT, when you talk with them, you begin to realise that they believe all this stuff. They are not distanced from any of it.
They will try to argue with you in a friendly way and – and this is weird and disconcerting – they assume that you are starting off from the same basic assumptions that they are. Even the highly intelligent ones cannot get their heads round the idea that Islam is a religion among other religions. They try desperately to try to talk what they sincerely believe is “common sense” to one, and they become confused when one doesn’t budge. They’ll say, “Look, be reasonable. You have to admit that ….”and then come up with some totally outrageous conclusion.
This is all of them, Pommygranate. There cannot be any exceptions because of the nature of the belief. The ones who don’t believe this crap are the ones who leave – like Aayan Hirsi Ali and some other apostates. But this being yet one more offence against allah, they are threatened with death.
Perry de Havilland writes:
“There is nothing quite like a scary bunch of very real people calling for blood curdling things and threatening to abridge our liberty to justify people like you taking ‘sensible measures’ to abridge our liberty in the name of security/respect/practicality or whatever.”
Indeed. Fungus the Bogeyman was up on his hind legs only this afternoon, teling the H of C how Friday’s demonstrations “proved” the junta had been right to propose its neo-fascist ‘be nice to Islam – or else’ legislation last week.
Interestingly, he went on to wave his unblemished palms, lying to the house (that’s an offence, isnt it?) that prosecutions are matters solely for the police and CPS.
Not according to Rod Liddle’s article in yesterday’s Sunday Times, they aren’t!
If government isn’t your friend – this one is an actively malicious enemy.
Verity,
“And now all the good little warriors are in Britain and Europe trying to take over. It happened quickly because of their taqqya and kitman and a gullible west. One tiny demand, one tiny concessession at a time. Now they’ve worked up to being able to call for the death of Britain on British streets and the cowed dhimmis do nothing. Why? Because they’re so tolerant? No, because they are so scared.”
We are not scared of the extremists we are scared of the State,any complaint or demonstration on our part would be met with a draconian response from the state.
The police were at tha demonstration to protect the demonstrators,no to keep them in order.
pommygranate
What a contemptible, whiny, snivelling comment. Truly, I pity you.
So what? I’ve known fucking loads of muslims like that too, and they’re like that until you give them a choice – life in a liberal society with guaranteed freedoms for all or life under islam. Then you’ll get a smile and an ever-so-reasonable explanation of why islam is so good, of why the West must recognise this and why it’ll happen. I’ve had this chat 100 times with the most moderate of muslims. I had this chat in the pub 10 days ago with Kim, the drinking, smoking, swearing, laid back muslim from Algeria. Everyone loves Kim. He’s the really cooool muslim. Well he is until you mention 9/11 or Afghanistan or Iraq or Al Quaeda or Bush. Mention those to Kim the really nice mulsim and he turns into those ‘extremists’ outside the Danish embassy on Friday. So no, no thanks. Those colleagues of yours may not give Omar Bakri the time of day but that means nothing. I know that when the flag goes up the majority of them will instinctively jump on the side of their religion and tribe. They will not jump to it in the defence of freedom and liberty. I know it.
pommygranate, you may pull the wool over the eyes of others but don’t think about trying it on with me. And don’t just work with them, educate yourself and talk to them.
Verity
None so blind as those that shall not see, eh?
Pete_London writes:
“TWENTY YEARS AGO I heard all this. I heard it in football teams and colleges from muslims I grew up with in east London.”
As is so often the way, the debate polarises between those with direct experience of life in the Gt Britain most people inhabit, and those who have only had nice jobs and lived in nice areas.
Like you, I watched this seed sown and I watched it germinate. Twenty years ago, a Midlands town in which I worked for a while started to see exactly the same phenomena as you described in the East End. The seeds of that had been sown with mass immigration from the sub-continent, ten or fifteen years before.
By a trick of fate, I now have a young relative who lives in that very same town. He’s blond, ‘hideously white’, and he tells me there are several areas of the town he and his friends simply dare not enter. Knowing what it was like even 20 years ago, I quite believe him.
Those who have dwelt in happier places throughout their brief lives, and whose labours rarely include much contact with Moslem yoof in their own environment, simply do not know what they are talking about.
If their yapping away about the joys of multiculturalism were all that happened, it wouldn’t be quite so worrying. But when they are driving government policy – and they are – it means we are in very serious trouble indeed.
Does anyone imagine Bliar, Straw, Clarke or any other of these clowns in office have ever had any direct experience of life in the English wastelands they and their fellow travellers helped create?
Pete_London says: There are none so blind as those who shall not see, eh?
Yes, but in a way, I don’t blame them. They’ve never seen this in action. They’re provincial. They think everyone starts off from the same set of assumptions as their own.
But they do not. Muslims start off with some very bizarre assumptions – as in, we’re all born Islamic and the reason we’re not Islamic now is, we left Islam. Now that was very disloyal of us and we need to come back instanter. Or else. There’s a funny blog called Allah’s Believe It Or Else!
It is inconceivable to a Muslim that you don’t realise this. It’s been banged into their brains at home and at school and in the mosques since the day they were born. Even very sophisticated Muslims believe this shit. That’s why they think they’re persuading you to “come back”. Taking a new tack to convince you, they might say, “Well, you have to agree that the prophet said (whatever)” as though this were a universally acknowledged truth. We are not speaking the same language.
It is not just the Muslim yoof, who are hazardous in their own way, but it’s the Iqbal Sacranies – apparently fairly Westernised, apparently reasonable, but get into a discussion with these people and you will go round in exactly the circles I have described. They become frustrated because you cannot see what they are trying so politely to explain to you.
Sacranie is absolutely typical. The lies, the evasions, the twisting of meaning … for example, you might say to someone like Sacranie, “Do you believe the suicide bombers on London Transport were evil?” and your Muslim will answer, “Certainly, it is always evil to take innocent lives. Allah will not forgive people who take innocent lives!” What is not spoken is “But as you were born a Muslim and left Islam, you are not innocent.”
See? All wrapped up.
Perry wrote:
There is nothing quite like a scary bunch of very real people calling for blood curdling things and threatening to abridge our liberty to justify people… taking ‘sensible measures’ to abridge our liberty in the name of security/respect/practicality or whatever.
But of course. Take the media coverage over this last weekend as a case in point. Admittedly, I may have missed it, but nowhere – not in a newspaper leader, from a cabinet minister or ‘community spokesperson – did I hear/read anyone divert from the ‘of course free speech is sacred, but it must be balanced by responsibility and respect’ cant.
No one said, ‘There is no such thing as the right not to be offended’. No one said, ‘Respect, toleration and good manners are three quite different things’. No one said, ‘Calling for respect is just another way of calling for censorship by the arbitors of respectability’.
Collapse of stout party.
By the same token to what I wrote above, they are incapable of understanding that the Danish editor didn’t print the cartoons in order to offend Muslims. They cannot grasp it. They write in their whining posts claiming that the editor deliberately offended Islam.
It is explained and explained and explained to them that people in the West spend 24/7 not thinking about Allah. They cannot understand that the editor was concerned, in an advanced secular society, about the self-censorship that people had begun to impose on themselves. This worried him, which is why the cartoons were commissioned.
There is not one Islamic, I guarantee you, who can understand this. Not a one. They write in their baby questions: “How would you like it if we insulted Jesus? This is the level of ignorance and simple-mindedness.
I post over on Albion’s Seedlings and the Muslims who wrote in to oppose my post all said it was wrong to deliberately malign Mohammad. (They hadn’t even seen the cartoons.) And when people respond that Mohammad and offence isn’t the issue, they write back with the killer point, “well you would never allow anything negative to be published about Jesus!”
I gave up responding to them because their minds have been nailed shut since they were six years of age.
Well, I’ll be jiggered. An apology.
Well, not only has the RoP cut itself off from Danish insulin, but it gets better! Over on LGF is the news that the Pakistani Medical Association is not going to prescribe drugs that are manufactured in any of the countries that “insulted” Mohammad. And pharmacies have “vowed” not to sell such medicines.
They also warned patients not to take such medicines “in case they were accidentally prescribed by a doctor”. So I guess they’ll be getting their pills from all those Islamic pharmaceutical giants located in the Hindu Kush.
RobtE – So it was written in English why?
Verity –
I’ve no idea why it was written in English. And pretty good English, at that. A fraud? Or written by Westernised Muslims? Who knows?
I suppose one could check the ownership of the domain and see who it’s registered to, if one could be bothered. Perhaps someone here remembers better than I how to do that. I, for one, would be interested to know.
Pete_London is right.
The problem with Muslims is not the extremists marching up and down the streets with messages of hate. Every society has its share of crazy people and they can be dismissed as that, and they are plain to see.
The problem with Muslims is the ‘friendly’ ones who make you believe they are moderate freedom lovers, but once you start talking politics their attitude often becomes shocking. They support the enemies of freedom.
A classic example was when they were complaining about the Muslim Miss England (originally from Afghanistan), Skynews went into some Muslims areas and started talking to passers by, they sounded reasonable until the beauty contest was mentioned and then there were many strange statements, like “she’ll burn in hell”, “Muslim women must ‘cover'”, etc.
I was supprised by it and I didn’t have a politically correct view in the first place.
Some will say the media only played the extreme views to make a better story, maybe thats true, but the reporters on skynews seemed to me to be at pains to stress the difference between extremists and real Islam..
If they’re apologising to the people of Norway and Denmark, it is strange that it is written in English and good English, at that.
I have a feeling it’s some well-educated (and sane) British Muslims apologising on behalf of their co-religionists. After all, Islam recognises no national boundaries.
Dave – the only difference between extremists and ordinary Islamics is, the ordinary ones try to make an effort to fit in – but under the skin, they are all extremists in the cause of Islam. They have to be. This reaction is itself a part of their religion. It’s only a religion of peace if everyone obeys Islamic rules.
Verity –
At the risk of offending Francophone sensibilities, it may be that it was written in English because English is the new lingua franca. I don’t know.
At any rate, I’m having trouble reconciling your 2nd and 3rd paragraphs. I’ll readily admit that you have more direct experience with Muslims than I. So please, can you spell out your argument for idiots like me? I’d like to understand what you’re saying.
Interestingly, some of the people posting on the site write as though they have encountered the authors before. For one example, look at comment 583 by Flying Finn (link may point to another page by the time you read this – but there should be some way to access the comment given the number).
Others complain that they don’t show themselves. I’m really curious who they are. It is weird that there’s essentially no Danish or Norwegian on the site anywhere. One would expect, at bare minimum, links to a Danish language translation of the main page!
Found on Dhimmiwatch, a link to Der Spiegel for an interview with the awesome Hirsi Ali. This is the first time I had seen her photo. Not just brilliant and brave, but perfectly lovely. (Link) She offers some illuminating insights. (For those just back from five years in a cave, she is a Dutch Member of Parliament, co-produced “Submission” with Theo van Gogh and is an apostate and the subject of such serious threats that she is under 24 hours a day police protection.)
RobtE – I’ll be glad to explain myself, but 2nd and 3rd paragaphs of which comment?
Joshua, my paternal grandparents emigrated from Norway. We still keep contact with family over there.
Norwegians can’t even agree among each other on a single language/dialect. They certainly don’t expect anyone else to try. They are quite impressed when my brother does.
It’s what RobtE said, “English is the new lingua franca.”
Joshua – Yes, curious, isn’t it?
I went to the comment just below 583, from a Naziette by the name of Marina: “The people responsible for the cartoons should be punished in a fair way,
either with a large fine or prison, for destroing world peace”.
That’s like the cleric – was it mad Omar, they’re all melding in my mind, who said the cartoonists should get a fair trial and then be executed.
Verity, Old Thing –
Sorry for the obtuseness. Blame it on one too many glasses of this most excellent German Reisling…
The 2nd and 3rd paragraphs I was asking about were from your 21:06 post.
Hmmm – I still don’t understand what is confusing, but perhaps the apologisers are British Muslims. They would feel comfortable apologising on behalf of Norwegian and Danish Muslims because Muslims only recognise that they are all citizens of the nation of Islam.
I am puzzled about how the above conflicts with my next paragraph. Most Muslims do just want to get on with their lives and not be too aggressive with their religion as long as everything’s on an even keel. But they will have the same infantile reaction to those silly cartoons – meaning they will believe they were a deliberate insult to Islam. They will not believe the editor’s motivation. Their minds work in a strange way because of their indoctrination from birth.
It’s what RobtE said: English gets to more people & I’m sure that most commenters are aware that most people in Northern Europe understand the language and, in many cases, have a better command of it than the Yoof in the UK.
An excellent Riesling, RobtE? I’m surprized the Germans allowed it to be exported….or did you simply bring it back yourself. Enjoy!
N.B…………RIEsling…..not REI
Verity wrote:
“…for example, you might say to someone like Sacranie, “Do you believe the suicide bombers on London Transport were evil?” and your Muslim will answer, “Certainly, it is always evil to take innocent lives. Allah will not forgive people who take innocent lives!” What is not spoken is “But as you were born a Muslim and left Islam, you are not innocent.”“.
I don’t want to come across as facetious and I don’t know if you’re quoting verbatim, but surely if he has replied to the question with the answer “certainly,…”, then that is a positive response to the question of the bombers being evil?
Of course, I absolutely understand the point you are making about being very economical with the truth. I’ve learned to analyse and query every word of every comment made by politicians and find myself doing much the same with others who have their own agenda (ie, Sacranie). It reminds me of the time when the media got themselves in a fit about Blair saying he could apologise for the war in Iraq and went about claiming that he had apologised for the war in Iraq.
I would draw your attention to an article by the excellent Dr. Theodore Dalrymple which one might consider germane to the present theme. It is to be found at http://www.aldaily.com or at http://www.cato-unbound.org
James – No, no, no! I wasn’t “quoting” Sacranie verbatim or at all. He’s a type. He’s a Muslim who has managed to insinuate himself into a Western country as an official spokesman – there are hundreds of them. I said “someone like Sacranie” meaning of his ilk, a wily apologist. Read my post. I was giving an imaginary scenario. Someone like Sacranie.
Where you got “if you are quoting verbatim” from I do not know in view of what I wrote.
It seems that the ability to comment on the proposed Trafalgar Square ( Nelson…..& the pregnant whatnot, Oh England, England!) march has been curtailed for some (and there must be one) reason………so I nudge you a little here: Between ’39 & ’45 survival necessitated our having the Soviets as allies. Not very likable folk then…or ever. “Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.” Thus the Bard.
A visit to the square on Saturday will, in any event, enable you to see our brave police in action. Take care not to impugn their horses with gaiety lest you be unwillingly “foxhuntered”.
This argument largely stems from our limited contact with Muslims. I have clearly had a better experience than most.
The Times this morning provides some more concrete evidence via a survey of British Muslim attitudes to suicide bombing and Israel. The most interesting findings are –
i) 46% of Muslims believe the Jewish community in Britain is in league with the Freemasons to control the media and politics.
ii) 52% believe in Israel’s right to exist
iii) Asked if suicide bombing can ever be justified in Britain, a whopping 23% didn’t disagree (albeit only 7% actively agreed)
Unbelievably, 67% of non-Muslims agreed with the statement that “newspapers have the right to publish the cartoons, but they should not do so out of respect for the Muslim community”
And Pete – take a leaf out of some other commenters’ books who also disagree with me but are able to do so without retorting to childlike insults. They carry more weight.
Verity – I do see your point about the weasel words so often trotted out. It happens all the time and you hit the nail on the head when it is spoken as disingenuous double-talk to fool people. The message is that all those living in heathen London are evil and marked out by Allah for rough treatment.
Did anyone see Newsnight last night? Hilarious. Should be shown in RE.
That Populus poll in The Times is worthless. The sample was only 500 and is grossly tilted towards 18-34 y.o.s who are likeliest to give unconsidered responses. There are also issues of poor comprehension among people many of whom may not speak English well (and if non-English-speakrers are excluded that’s another complication). Bog-standard voting intentions polls use minimum 1,000 samples for +/- 2-3% range of error. This Muslim poll was sponsored by Jewish groups and is being run in a vehemently pro-Israeli tabloid.
pommygranate, those ate interesting figures for sure. That conspiracy theories are so rife is the dependable sign of a culture in deep crisis… people trying to explain things the framework of their world view (meta-context) simply cannot encompass.
Numbercruncher – the identity of the poll sponsor is a good point but a sample size of 500 is statistically significant and should give no more than one standard deviation error (+/- 5%).
The results are pretty concenring and cant be dismissed as statistical error
“..the dependable sign of a culture in deep crisis… people trying to explain things the framework of their world view (meta-context) simply cannot encompass.”
Surely you are speaking of the left’s apologists for Islam?!?
pommygranate
Childlike insults? Wh- never mind. So, interesting survey in the Times, don’t you think? The limitations of the sample and the propensity of respondents to avoid controversial answers notwithstanding, about a half of muslims in Great Britain think Israel has no right to exist, about a half believe the Jews are in cahoots with freemasonry, some 37% believe that the Jewish community in Britain is a legitimate target … makes you feel just great that they’re here, eh?! Don’t you just get that warm, fuzzy what-a-great-multiculti-paradise feeling?
It should also be pointed out that 18-34 year olds (esp. 18-34 year-old males) are known to be responsible for the lion’s share of violent crimes. This is the demographic of muslim most likely to cause the kinds of problems everyone is worried about, so it makes sense that the Times is more worried about their opinions than those of, say, 89-year-old muslim grannies.
Joshua – yes, those on that infantile march with those stupid posters were in the correct age group. I do also think they have a raging sense of inferiority – well justified. They look around and they know they didn’t invent a single thing that makes up life today. And they know that we know, which must be simply infuriating.
Pommygranite – the argument does not stem from “our” limited contact with Muslims. My contact has not been limited.
TimC: “I do see your point about the weasel words so often trotted out. It happens all the time and you hit the nail on the head when it is spoken as disingenuous double-talk to fool people.” This is taqqya and kitman (sounds like a music hall double act, doesnt it?) which is an official tactic to fool non-Muslims – if you can find a none Muslim stupid enough to be fooled by a Muslim. Using this practice – I can’t remember which is taqqya and which is kitman, but one of them – they are obliged to tell any lie to infidels to convince them to come over to Islam. Believe it or not, they can officially swear to a truth on the Koran when they know it is a lie, if it is in the service of Islam. That is why the courts in the West must never allow people to swear on the Koran, by the way.
Has anyone considered the problem with this,”ii) 52% believe in Israel’s right to exist”
Our Muslim community is mainly from the Indian subcontinent not the Middle East.
The subtext of this is therefore a purely religious one,a vote could just as easily have been taken amongst Greek Orthodox or Coptic Christians.
Numbercruncher – the identity of the poll sponsor is a good point but a sample size of 500 is statistically significant and should give no more than one standard deviation error (+/- 5%).
The results are pretty concenring and cant be dismissed as statistical error
I can’t agree. The Times itself gave a health warning, which it doesn’t with its Populus voting-intention polls. One thousand should be a minimum, particularly when dealing with an inaccessible community. And how was the fieldwork done? Face-to-face or phone or both?
Besides, these answers never really tell you anything, if only because the pollsters never have a ‘Who the friggin’ hell cares?’ box and people are usually too polite to say they don’t give a monkey’s either way. And saying Israel shouldn’t exist does not necessarily mean it should be abolished by violence. During WW2 most Brits would probably have said ‘Nazi Germany should cease to exist’, but they didn’t mean you should kill every last German.
People use polls the way drunks use lamp posts.
Larry the Lurker – Interesting post. Why don’t you post more often?
I see the Danes are disappointed in the lack of support in the EU. (Link) I don’t blame them, although who would have expected anything more from Europe and a Britain led by the weak-kneed Tony Blair?
I do not think the poll is meaningless but I do think we should avoid drawing too many clear conclusion from it. I agree with Larry that you can use polls to support almost anything and the phrasing of the questions can have quite an effect on the responses.
Father-son team oinks way to victory in French cult competition.
And what have this to do with these cartoons, i can hear you ask.
Just take a look a this link: (Link) .
This is one of the pictures that the danish muslim delegation had with them on the trip to the ME. And witch have never been printed in Jyllands-Posten.
It was posted on the MSNBC website in Aug. 15, 2005. (Link) .
I think that the danish muslim Abu Laban has been taken with his nickers down 🙂
Verity,
No worries! I just wanted to clarify whether or not there was part of a genuine quote in there. My point rested on the “Certainly…” part.
Still, I’m interested to know more about this ‘taqya and kitman’ concept. Do you know where I can find more information about it? I’ve Googled it, only to come up with a mere three results!
Try spelling it “taqiya.” Then you get this many hits on Google.
…and Wikipedia apparently goes with the “Taqiyya” option… 🙂
Once you are aware of taqiya and kitman, it is like having a road map to every sentence an Islamic “spokesman” speaks. Read a little about it and you will see the landscape of Islamic speaking with great clarity. You will be able to see where they think they’re taking you.
Get Iqbal Sacranie or that Banglawangla to say unequivocally, with no added words of their own: The suicide bombings on London Transport, the WTC, the Madrid train station, the Bali nightclub and the beheadings of three little Christian girls walking to school are unequivocal crimes against humanity.” Ouch! A pig flying by just clipped me with its trotter!
Oh yes, and don’t let them add, “But …”. That’s another trick. Agree with everything, reasonably and seriously, and then say, “but”.
Sorry about three posts in a row, but Laban Tall has a pic of the police trying to stop someone from photoing the “suicide bomber”. (Link) On whose orders, I wonder …
Verity
That’s a very good question, on whose orders indeed. Coppers don’t just decide themselves to prevent the press from recording events.
We also have the police returning Captain Hook’s instruction manuals:
And the Home Office is now telling the police who to arrest:
Happy days.
Pete_London – Well, Omar Khayam’s back in prison, so at least we have some poetic justice.
No stately dome for him.
Well, Omar Khayam’s back in prison, so at least we have some poetic justice.
Boom, boom!
And a loaf of bread and a jug of wine to the funny lady!
RobtE – Shukria (as they say in those parts).
‘Shukran’ I think Verity.
Apparently the EU has found some spine
I like that statement by Charles Clarke about the “Forces in this country trying to weaken democracy”,he should Know he’s a member.
John Rippengale – It depends where you are. Shukriah is used in some places – but I think in N India. Yes, it’s shukran in the ME. By the way, “no stately pleasure dome for him” was Kubla Kahn not the Rubaiyat and was by Coleridge, not Omar Khayyam.
As long as we’re correcting people…
And before anyone writes in with another correction, I know it was translated by Edward Fitzgerald and may have been mostly written by him.
Uh-huh. The actual quote was “The EU’s executive office today warned Iran that attempts to boycott Danish goods or cancel trade contracts with European countries would lead to a further rupture in already cool relations.”
A further rupture in already cool relations. I’m not even sure that’s an implied threat. It’s certainly not an outright threat. Just like with Iraq, they seem to be of the impression that wagging their fingers a little faster will do the trick.
Sounds like space normal speed for the EU to me. Nothing to see here…
SNAFU
Permenant Expat:
N.B…………RIEsling…..not REI
LOL Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
You know that feeling when you realise that your house keys are still in your other jacket just as the front door clicks shut? Well, I saw the typo just as I was pressing the ‘Post’ button. But I thought, hey, no bother. No one on Samizdata would be so pedantic as to point out the typo.
Oh, well. Live and learn…
How about we scratch “human rights” in favor of “property rights” please?
Cynicus Prime – I like that! Except … it will inevitably spawn the European Court of Property Rights …
How about we scratch “human rights” in favor of “property rights” please?
Close, Cynicus, but even better would be scratching “human rights” for “political rights”.
T’other week there was a thread on here in which political and economic rights were pretty thoroughly confused. It would a most excellent topic of discussion… [hint to our host]
Hmmm, RobtE – I think I want to see a European Court of Political Rights even less than I want to see a European Court of Property Rights.
RobtE: Soooo sorry….and yes I’m a pedant & there are very few of us left. Having made the same mistake in a German restaurant many years ago I assumed that a reminder to those who are unaware of the difference between “rei” & “rie” would be accepted with equanimity. As you are doubtless aware there is a world of difference between “scheisser” & “schiesser”.
If you’re looking for some real pedantry, try this: “…just as I was pressing the ‘Post button…” In IT I think that a button is either pressed or not. The gerund is hardly possible. Untwist the knickers, it’s all in good fun …….and is not intended to be at your expense.
Permanent –
No knickers twisted here. Hence the start of my post with “LOL”. I knew you were joshing. My apologies for a post that didn’t come across in the same joshing spirit.
As I also toil in the IT mines, the use of the gerund is worth a discussion too…
RobtE: Now I feel like a real Scheisser! …….:-)
It has surprised a number of people that the inhabitants of Gaza have such a superabundant supply of Danish flag that there are enough to burn
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/
2006/02/04/do0402.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/02/04/ixnewz
top.html)
The touring imans did NOT bring them in their suitcases together with the extra cartoons. As revealed in an article from Svenska Dagbladet it was simply an astute businessman who did a proactive move into an emerging market. Capitalism rules – OK
http://www.svd.se/dynamiskt/utrikes/did_11765644.asp
Many of the Danish flags which are burned these days are clearly counterfeit and we all feel very offended by these rags being mistaken for our noble Dannebrog
Properly proportioned Danish flags (Dannebrog) can be ordered here:
http://www.aalborgflagfabrik.dk
A translation of the Swedish text from the link above is given here:
Danish flags sell well in Gaza
When Ahmed Abu Dayya heard that the Danish cartoons of the profet Mohammed were republished around Europe he knew exactly what his customers in Gaza needed: Flags to burn
Aby Dayya ordered hundred coveted Danish and Norwegian flags for his shop in Gaza City. And the trade is excellent.
– I don’t take a political stance. Everything concerns business. But this time I was offended by the insult to the profet Mohammed, says Abu Dayya.
Normally it is difficult to get hold of Danish and Norwegian flags in the isolated Gaza but now they appear during the daily protests and are becoming popular substitutes for the Israelian flag. Angry muslims burn the flags or tear them apart.
I knew that there would be a demand for the flags because of the peoples angry reactions to the insults to our profet, says Abu Dayya who in his shop also sells the flags of the Palestinian Liberation Organistion (PLO) as well as souvenirs and gifts.
The Danish and Norwegian flags cost 85 Skr (9 €) in his shop which he believes has a dampening effect on sales. Many of the demonstrators prefer to save their money and make the flags themselves
Flags……..Well, after all, business is business……that’s reasonable. But A.Q. Khan (Pakistan’s Klaus Fuchs) is quite another matter. ein absoluter Scheisskerl.
The Diss’s banner is being discussed over on dhimmiwatch.org
hey iam coptic . u r wright the islamic profet was only a womanizer & a killer he just married 12 women in official recordings & about 99 women in secrets . also this is ur opinion on him . no one can oblige u to change it. ur government must protect ur wrights