Upon arriving back home in the United Kingdom this week, I was greeted with two contrasts to the United States, where I had been visiting the East Coast for ten days. The first was a decent cup of tea, something that lets me forgive the other evils of English cuisine. The second was less welcome: a change in mindset and morals – the European intelligentsia’s outrage at the circumstances surrounding the death of Osama Bin Laden.
Among the emotive criticism and cries of insensitivity levelled at the US, a number of opinion articles slammed the American celebrations of Bin Laden’s demise.
Americans have a right to grieve and remember those who died on 9/11. But they have no monopoly on memory, grief or anger. Hundreds and thousands of innocent Afghanis, Iraqis and Pakistanis have been murdered as a result of America's response to 9/11. If it's righteous vengeance they're after, Americans would not be first in line. Fortunately it is not a competition, and there is enough misery to go around.
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If "they" killed Bin Laden in Abbottabad...More >>
Every few days, I am told of some wonderful new ‘interfaith’ initiative on some campus led by some wonderful diverse potpourri of students. I am told that these efforts will reduce tensions between different religious communities and that if we all understood each other more there would a greater chance of peace, harmony and prosperity. I am also told that anyone who does not support ‘interfaith dialogue’ is part of the problem rather than the solution.
I am not part of the problem, and interfaith dialogue is not part of the solution. I despair at the obsession with ‘interfaith’ activities. The notion has become so unquestioningly engrained into the (mostly) well-intentioned agendas of student organisations and Government initiatives, that to question its efficacy results in accusations of heartless apostasy. The adherence to interfaith dialogue is now so ubiquitous that the entire concept has transformed into a single word – ‘interfaith’.
I am one such interfaith apostate. I firmly believe that this new co-operative religion is deeply self-destructive for three reasons. To understand the first, one must first know that interfaith on campuses is a direct response to hate speech and radicalism, in particular the threat of Islamism....More >>
In his comment piece ‘Hypocrisy at its Worst’, Angus Hill of the York Vision denounces me as a hypocrite for ‘calling for the censure [sic] of free speech on campus’. This would be outrageously true were it premised on the notion that I had indeed attempted to censor free speech. Unfortunately for poor Mr Hill, I did no such thing.
Curiously enough, it is actually Hill’s deficient vocabulary – his failure to understand the definition of the word ‘censure’ - that best sums up his confusion and our unchanging position. We made sure that al-Kawthari was loudly and publicly criticised, or censured, but at no point did we seek to actually censor him and his talk.
For those who are not aware, the story is centred on the invitation extended to Mohammed ibn Adam al-Kawthari, a ‘conservative’ (as dubbed by Hill) Islamic scholar with rather abhorrent views, to speak to the Islamic Society. Al-Kawthari believes, inter alia, that women should be stoned to death for adultery, homosexuals may not be defended in court and thieves must have their hands amputated.
A rather large number of students on campus – liaising with politicians,...More >>
Cageprisoners claims to be a human rights group that raises awareness for those detained as part of the ‘War on Terror’. Unfortunately, like so many Islamist groups that hide behind ‘interfaith dialogue’ or ‘human rights’ in order to espouse their virulent ideas, Cageprisoners is no different. The National Post journalist Terry Glavin has described it as “a front for Taliban enthusiasts and al-Qaeda devotees that fraudulently presents itself a human rights group.”
Harry’s Place has a piece about the article of Cageprisoners activist Fahad Ansari, in which he opined that those responsible for the murder of British soldiers and the Afghani people that the Taliban slaughter each day were heroes. This is hardly a surprising statement from someone such as Ansari, whom Harry’s Place previously noted that while mourning the death of terrorist Faraj Hassan, had written: “His death however may serve as the fertilizer that serves to revive the spirit of jihad in the Muslims of Britain.”
The article in question has now mysteriously disappeared from the Cageprisoners website, but luckily we just happen to have a copy...More >>
The debate regarding anti-Zionism’s anti-Semitic overtones is as ever applicable and is as ever strenuously contested. On a British University campus, I regularly experience screaming denials of bigotry from not just British Islamists and their morally anaemic far-Left supporters, but also from persons considered - or at least self-perceived - to be moderates.
For a while now, I have taken what I consider to be a reasonable and positive perspective: if one ignores the unquestionable suffering and the consequent emotional and rational incentives of the Jewish people to provide themselves with the optimism, prosperity and success of the self-reliance and security of a homeland, then one can reject Zionism - or Jewish nationalism - but only on the absolute condition that one also rejects Palestinian nationalism. To choose one over the other is a consummate hypocrisy that assumes absolutely no rational premise or a desire for peaceful resolution.
One particular NGO, which any rational yet uninformed observer would expect to take an enlightened and progressive position, would be ‘War on Want’ - a registered British charity which received just under half...More >>
While away from London in Jerusalem, for the third time in my life of twenty one years, I went to stroll through Yad Vashem, the extraordinary Holocaust Museum that sits unforgettably over Jerusalem. It lies next to the shade-swathed graveyard where Herzl and the other defenders of the Jewish people are buried.
I came across a quotation at which I stared for a while. It is not particularly poetic or eloquent, but its resonance was imprinted upon my memory. Written by Rabbi Yitzhak Nissenbaum, in the early months of the Warsaw ghetto, it states: “Before, our enemies demanded our soul, and the Jew sacrificed his body in sanctifying God's Name; Now the enemy demands the Jewish body and the Jew must defend himself and his life.”
The quote empitomized individualism and the will to survive.
At Yad Vashem, you are treated at intervals to a bright light at the end of the museum's tunnel. As the museum's narrative develops, the War and Holocaust ends, and the state of Israel is created. We finally then burst out of the museum, into the light. There...More >>
I have a colleague at my university who is a walking stereotype. He wears a kaffiyeh; loose-fitting clothes with ‘Free Palestine’ badges attached; a low-slung woollen hat at the obligatorily jaunty angle; a pair of dangling, white, silent earphones that rhythmically swing from their pivot at the neck of his shirt; and various modish accessories representing figures such as Guevara, Chavez, Stalin and Castro. He is the son of an infamous champagne socialist.
Our stereotype once told me, ‘I always support the underdog. Even when I watch a football match, no matter who is playing, I’ll support the weaker side.’
Not to equate my colleague with an international terrorist mastermind, but compare this with Bin Laden’s adage: ‘When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.’
The first statement is indicative of the culturally relativist, self-destructive side of Left-liberalism. It is a statement that is also of great worth to Islamist groups all over the World who use Bin Laden’s statement to attack the West, while using our stereotype’s statement to watch the...More >>
Cageprisoners claims to be a human rights group that raises awareness for those detained as part of the ‘War on Terror’. Unfortunately, like so many Islamist groups that hide behind ‘interfaith dialogue’ or ‘human rights’ in order to espouse their virulent ideas, Cageprisoners is no different. The National Post journalist Terry Glavin has described it as “
The debate regarding anti-Zionism’s anti-Semitic overtones is as ever applicable and is as ever strenuously contested. On a British University campus, I regularly experience screaming denials of bigotry from not just British Islamists and their morally anaemic far-Left supporters, but also from persons considered - or at least self-perceived - to be moderates.
While away from London in Jerusalem, for the third time in my life of twenty one years, I went to stroll through Yad Vashem, the extraordinary Holocaust Museum that sits unforgettably over Jerusalem. It lies next to the shade-swathed graveyard where Herzl and the other defenders of the Jewish people are buried.
I have a colleague at my university who is a walking stereotype. He wears a kaffiyeh; loose-fitting clothes with ‘Free Palestine’ badges attached; a low-slung woollen hat at the obligatorily jaunty angle; a pair of dangling, white, silent earphones that rhythmically swing from their pivot at the neck of his shirt; and various modish accessories representing figures such as Guevara, Chavez, Stalin and Castro. He is the son of an infamous champagne socialist.
