Religion of peace strikes again: Danish cartoonist intruder shot

There is a saying in German: "Fear is a bad advisor".

Fear ? As in Islamophobia and Xenophobia.
Thanks for the advise, I shalll be sure to be careful of these evil foriegn muslims who are planning to take over the world.

[Onkel Neal]

It's not Islamaphobia to recognize the patterns of violence exhibited by some fanatical Muslims.

It's not Islamaphobia to recognize the patterns of violence exhibited by some fanatical Muslims.

But it is to take them few fanatics and their views and use them as a measure of islam as a whole, just as it is a phobia to think that them few nuts are going to take over the world.....and of course its a real sign of how bad the phobia has become when Sky repeatedly insists that non-existant laws are real.

[Skybird]

A brilliant and sharp comment by Hamed Abdel-Samad, a native Muslim himself, he teaches history and politology at the university of Munich. He is author of a german book, translated title "My farewell to heaven. A muslim's life in Germany".

Unfortunately it is in German. If I'm bored this afternoon, I'll translate it.

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/meinung/k...art141,2992562

Ungeachtet dessen wird der afrikanische Islam nicht selten als Beweis für die Heterogenität und Anpassungsfähigkeit des Islam gepriesen. Er galt lange als Argument, dass es „den einen Islam“ nicht gibt. Selbstverständlich ist der Islam vielfältig in seinen Strömungen und Ausprägungen, und natürlich kann niemand behaupten, dass über eine Milliarde Muslime zwischen Indonesien und Marokko eine gleichgeschaltete Masse bilden – und dennoch kann man von einem Islam sprechen. Denn die Unterschiede mögen für Theologen, Ethnologen und Kunsthistoriker von Interesse sein, politisch gesehen sind sie ziemlich irrelevant. Wenn wir vom Islam reden, meinen wir nicht volkstümliche Erscheinungsbilder, sondern meist die politische Ideologie und die Geisteshaltung, die dem Glaubenssystem Islam entspringen. Es geht um den Islam, der den Westen als eine feindselige gleichgeschaltete Masse sieht und sich davon in jeder Form abgrenzt.

Wenn Muslime selbst vom Islam reden, im Zusammenhang etwa mit der Einführung von Islamunterricht an europäischen Schulen oder der Beantragung des Status einer Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts, dürfen sie von einem einzigen Islam reden. Wenn Muslime von der „Religion des Friedens“ sprechen, sagen sie nicht, welchen Islam sie meinen. Wenn aber Islamkritik auftaucht, kommt ein Taschenspielertrick, um die Kritik abzuwürgen: Von welchem Islam reden Sie überhaupt?
(...)
Das berühmte Zitat des Rechtsphilosophen Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde „Der freiheitliche, säkularisierte Staat lebt von Voraussetzungen, die er selbst nicht garantieren kann“ wird gerne durch religiöse Institutionen so verstanden, als seien die Religionen die einzigen Lieferanten dieser Voraussetzungen als Erzeuger von Moral und Solidarität. Ich dagegen interpretiere Böckenfördes These so, dass jede Demokratie nicht nur von den Gesetzen, sondern auch von der Geisteshaltung der Menschen lebt, die diese Gesetze hervorgebracht haben. Viele zugewanderte Muslime in Europa befinden sich außerhalb dieses Konsenses, da sie die europäischen Erfahrungen, die diese Geisteshaltung zustande brachten, nie teilten. Sie halten ihre eigene Geisteshaltung für höher und moralischer. Auch darüber muss verhandelt werden.

In another article he raised my attention by the headline: "In Europe you get muzzled faster than a counter-argument can be given.": http://www.tagesspiegel.de/meinung/a...t22196,2963775

[Skybird]

Done. Needless to say that I question his comment of Islam Light in Europe. He talks of taking Sharia and the aggressive mission away from Islam, and this Islam Light then still being Islam. My argument always has been that this is no Islam at all, then, and that it is impossible to take Sharia out of Islam. With the rest of the text I agree very much.

-----

Hamed Abdel-Samad:

And it nevertheless exist: the just one Islam!


After the unsuccessful climate summit, the Danish capital does not find rest. During christmas night, 760 appartements had been robbed and got devastated, including mine. But that did not sadden the general happy mood. Skaet er skaet, what happened has happened, my Danish neighbour commented very relaxed, who got robbed, too. But right on time with the beginning of the new year, the city gets shaken by the failled assassination of the 74-year old cartoonist Kurt Wetsergaard. More than four years after the controversial muhammad cartoons, a 28-year old wanted to take revenge by knife and axe.

This assassination attempt reminds me of christmas night again, this time not of the robberies taking place, but of another failed assassination - the one against the American passanger plane. There also the candidate for paradise was a Muslim with black-african background.

Often it is claimed that the West creates the globalisation, Asians deal with it in creative ways, Muslim were reactionary, and Africans were passiv. hat about those who are Africans and Muslims at the same time? How passive are these? I do not even mention the Sharia in nigeria, the war in Somalia and Darfur.

Despite that, African islam often gets praised as an evidence for the "heterogeneity" and adaptability of Islam. For long time it served as the argument for the claim that "the one Islam" does not exist. Of course Islam is diverse in it's trends and shapings, and of course nobody can claim that over one billion Muslims between Indonesia and Marocco form one conform mass - but still one can speak of just one Islam. Becasue the differences may be interesting for theologists, ethnologists and art-historians, but politically they are rather irrelevant. When we talk of islam, we do not mean folksy appearances, but the political ideology and the attitude of mind that meet the belief system of Islam. It is about the Islam that sees the West as a hostile, conformal mass from which it strictly fences itself off in every way.

"I am sure that the complete Somali community in Denmark turns against this assault on Westergaard", said the the speaker of this community, Mohammed Gelle, which is a rather daring statement when taking into account that 16000 somalis live in Denmark.But it is no surprising comment for somebody who labels Islam a "religion of peace".

When Muslims themselves talk of Islam, for example in connection with teaching Islami classes at european schools or applying for getting the status of a corporation of public law (?, = Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts), they are allowed to talk of just one single Islam. When Muslims talk of the "relgion of peace", they do not say which Islam they mean. But when a critic of Islam shows up, immediately a cheat by sleight of hand gets used, to scotch criticsm from the very beginning on: "After all, what kind of Islam are you talking about?"
Of what kind of Alcohol are we talking , when we say "too much alcohol harms your health"? Yes, alcohol gets used to produce medicine, or for cooking, but these purposes are not the matter of interest when we talk of the social effects of alcohol. Yes, there are different kinds of alcohol, with different effects. It depends on the volume you consume, and the same is true for Islam. High-proof islam in huge volumes harms coexistence and living together, it hinders integration, becasue this Islam divides the world into friend and enemy, faithful and infidel , and it does not tolerate any other identity beside itself. It is not about Muslims that fopcus on the sprioitual side of Islam, but those many that in every situation of ordinary life grab for the bottle of Islamic dogmas.

Three days before the assassination attempt against Westergaard, I was sitting in the office of Flemming Rose, editor of the culture ressort for the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten, and original creator of the idea for the muhammad cartoons. the cartoons were not the theme of our talk. I told him of a striking observation that had gotten my attention: that so very many Somali women walk full of pride with their headscarfs through Copenhagen. This being-Muslim, that obviously has annulled their African identity, seems to be their only source of self-confidence.

Africans in Europe often complain about increasing discrimination, not only by autochthonous, but also by people with migration background. But if they convert to Islam, they perceive it as rising in social status, because their race gets replaced with religion - and suddenly they are being recognised as brothers and sisters. Some even exaggerate it and chose terror as a means of communication to emphasize their membership to the Umma - like the Nigerian and the Somali assassins.

It isno longer a question of centre and periphery. No matter whether in Cairo, Karatchi, Jakarta, Lagos, Berlin or Copenhagen: radical Islam is on the advance. It is not about what is written in the Quran, but about most Muslims' attitude towards this book as the ultimate word of God and as an oracle that gets asked about every issue and aspect of ordinary life. By nature alcohol is neither good nor evil, but it raises the mood that already exists, it makes the passiv more passiv and the aggressive more aggressive. And the mood in the Islamic world seems to be very crummy currently. but this Islamci world is no longer a distant, exotic place behind the ocean. but Muslims live here in Europe, they have demands and want to become more visible. that is okay - but at what conditions?

How does Europe want to live together with people that were not there when Europe established the rules of living together, and who do not feel obligated to share these rules? Do we just say skaet er skaet? will there be again the talk of "single perpetrators" who only "hijacked" Islam in abuse? Will we continue to discuss the "heterogeinity" of islam, until - as always - the debate just fizzles out in an useless open end? Or will one - finally - need to negotiate with Muslims the rules of living together much more detaied and more courageous and more determined? For me, only an "Islam Light" has a future in europe: without Sharia, without djihad, without sexual apartheid, without missionising and without a mentality to always raise demands.

The famous quote by the juristic philosopher Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde "The free, secular state lives by preconditions that it cannot guarantee by itself" often gets understood by religious institutions as if religions are the only suppliers of these preconditions as creators of morals and solidarity. But I interprete Böckenförde's thesis in that way that every democracy does not live only by it's laws, but by the mental attitude of the people that created them. Many immigrated Muslims in Europe are outside this consensus, because they never shared the the European experience that created this mental attitude. they consider there own mental attiotude as being higher and more moral. This also has to be questioned with them.

[Skybird]

The Somalis currently seem to have a run. Now they are after a Swedish cartoonist:

http://www.thelocal.se/24198/20100104/

As is linked in that article, they also make massive use of Sweden as a recruitment base for terrorists - in youth centres.


http://www.thelocal.se/23212/20091111/

Disclaimer: As alaways, i can assure that religion has nothing to do with it. The women quoted in that article, saying "it is part of our religion", is blatantly lying.

Needless to say that I question his comment of Islam Light in Europe. He talks of taking Sharia and the aggressive mission away from Islam, and this Islam Light then still being Islam. My argument always has been that this is no Islam at all, then, and that it is impossible to take Sharia out of Islam.

Yet since you repeatedly demonstrate that you havn't the faintest idea what sharia is and the only interpretation of Islam you accept is the same as the modern fundamentalist fruitcakes from the backwaters of crapsville, it means you have no arguement just a phobia.