30 March 2007 @ 7:52AM >> Hours of rioting in a central Paris train terminal recall the two-week-long waves of riots that broke out all over France a year-and-a-half ago. Some of the elements are quite similar, such as how word-of-mouth propaganda recast criminals into victims, and how the local media refused to identify the rioters by any label other than “youths.” Nidra Poller reports from Paris on the latest turbulence:

24 hours after the punk jihad riots, the media delivered a profile of the “kid” whose arrest sparked 8 hours of mayhem in the bowels of the Gare du Nord.

The “kid” is one Angelo H. He is, it turns out, 32 years old, an illegal Congolese immigrant, and subject to a deportation order 1993.

The “kid” has been in trouble since he came to France at the age of ten—twenty-two registered condemnations for violent incidents and many that went unreported.

The cops initially went to arrest a little cheater and found they had bagged a hardened criminal. Instead of paying for a ticket like millions of law-abiding passengers Angelo H. jumped the turnstile and was, exceptionally, arrested. In a matter of seconds he had head-butted—or slapped—one of the RATP agents. When the agents wrestled him to the ground, Angelo screamed bloody murder, a small crowd gathered in protest against the agents’ brutality. And the call to battle rang out.

Almost instantly Angelo became a thirteen year-old boy whose arms were fractured by the cruel agents (shades of Mohamed al Dura). Then a pregnant woman was added to the list of victims of police brutality. All that was missing was “the infidels set fire to the mosque.”

23 March 2007 @ 10:36AM >> Europe is increasingly surrenduring its own culture and bowing to the mandates of Sharia law.

First, from Germany:

A 26-year-old mother of two wanted to free herself from what had become a miserable and abusive marriage. The police had even been called to their apartment to separate the two — both of Moroccan origin — after her husband got violent in May 2006. The husband was forced to move out, but the terror continued: Even after they separated, the spurned husband threatened to kill his wife.

A quick divorce seemed to be the only solution — the 26-year-old was unwilling to wait the year between separation and divorce mandated by German law. She hoped that as soon as they were no longer married, her husband would leave her alone. Her lawyer, Barbara Becker-Rojczyk agreed and she filed for immediate divorce with a Frankfurt court last October. They both felt that the domestic violence and death threats easily fulfilled the “hardship” criteria necessary for such an accelerated split.

In January, though, a letter arrived from the judge adjudicating the case. The judge rejected the application for a speedy divorce by referring to a passage in the Koran that some have controversially interpreted to mean that a husband can beat his wife. It’s a supposed right which is the subject of intense debate among Muslim scholars and clerics alike. “The exercise of the right to castigate does not fulfill the hardship criteria as defined by Paragraph 1565 (of German federal law),” the daily Frankfurter Rundschau quoted the judge’s letter as saying. It must be taken into account, the judge argued, that both man and wife have Moroccan backgrounds.

“The right to castigate means for me: the husband can beat his wife,” Becker-Rojczyk said, interpreting the judge’s verdict.

And from France, newspaper editor Philippe Val describes the trouble he’s in as a result of publishing those Mohammad cartoons:

A French court is tomorrow expected to decide whether I and the newspaper I edit, Charlie Hebdo, committed a crime by publishing cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. If the court finds me guilty of “publicly abusing a group of people because of their religion,” in effect racism, as the organizations of French Muslims that are plaintiffs in this case claim, I could be imprisoned for six months and fined thousands of euros. A great deal is at stake, for free speech in France and Europe, in the outcome of this trial.

[...]

Before publication, I was pressured not to go ahead and summoned to the Hotel Matignon to see the prime minister’s chief of staff; I refused to go. The next day, summary proceedings were initiated by the Grand Mosque of Paris and the Union of Islamic Organizations of France to stop this issue of Charlie Hebdo from hitting newsstands. The government encouraged them, but their suit was dismissed.

After the cartoons appeared, the Muslim groups attacked me by filing suit against me on racism charges. President Jacques Chirac, who campaigned for this just-completed trial, offered them the services of his own personal lawyer, Francis Szpiner. Dalil Boubakeur, the rector of the Grand Mosque, who always took orders from the Elysee, was apparently not convinced this case was necessary; he told me as much several times. But Mr. Boubakeur was under pressure from the fundamentalists at the UOIF (Union of Islamic Organizations of France), who had come to dominate the French Council of Muslim Worship, which he heads, and Mr. Chirac. Why? Only he knows. We can only guess. Probably to nurture his friendships in the Middle East and win arms contracts for France, while at home playing to Muslim public opinion that’s supposedly in thrall to fundamentalism.

[...]

Since it is hardly thinkable that the French parliament could be persuaded to re-establish the crime of blasphemy, the plaintiffs chose the legal path to try to obtain a ruling condemning all criticism of religion. But in order to survive, democracy needs to confront dogmas. We saw this happening when rights for women and homosexuals were established; we see it again today in defending genetic research on stem cells, for instance.

This trial is important for all the forms of expression that should flourish in democracy: painting, cinema, literature, journalism, scientific research, and even the free speech exercised in everyday life. The limits to this freedom are already fixed by laws that protect life, and that penalize racism, insults and defamation. In publishing the Danish cartoons, no one broke any of them.

30 January 2007 @ 8:53AM >> From the Evening Telegraph in Peterborough, England:

A growing minority of young Muslims are inspired by political Islam and feel they have less in common with non-Muslims than their parents do, a survey revealed.

The poll found support for Sharia law, Islamic schools and wearing the veil in public is significantly stronger among young Muslims than their parents.

While the majority of Muslims feel they have as much, if not more, in common with non-Muslims in Britain than with Muslims abroad, the figure dropped from 71% of over-55s to 62% among 16-24 year olds, the survey for independent think-tank Policy Exchange found.

The percentage who said they would prefer to send their children to Islamic state schools increased from 19% for over 55 year olds to 37% of 16-24 year olds.

The number who said they would prefer to live under Sharia law than British law increased from 17% of over-55s to 37% of 16-24 year olds.

Munira Mirza, the lead author of the report, said the results suggested Government policy was to blame for sharpening divisions between Muslims and non-Muslims.

She said: “The emergence of a strong Muslim identity in Britain is, in part, a result of multicultural policies implemented since the 1980s which have emphasised difference at the expense of shared national identity and divided people along ethnic, religious and cultural lines.”

17 January 2007 @ 8:32AM >> Bloomberg reports that “honor crimes” have historically been ignored by British law enforcement officials:

Samaira Nazir rejected Pakistani suitors chosen by her family and planned to elope with her Afghan boyfriend. The penalty for her defiance: death from 18 stab wounds inflicted by her brother and cousin at the family home in Southall, England.

More than a dozen women are killed for violating community standards each year in the U.K., according to police. While Nazir’s killers were jailed for life, U.K. police ignore hundreds of “honor crimes” to avoid inflaming relations with Muslim enclaves as they work to head off homegrown terror plots, say lawmakers and women’s rights advocates.

“There is a kid-gloves approach on the basis that you don’t want to offend these communities,” says Usha Sood, a lawyer and lecturer at Nottingham Trent University who specializes in forced marriage cases. “If you take into account the whole range of honor offenses, the number runs into the thousands.”

[...]

Honor violence includes abduction, forced abortion and rape, police say. Most incidents involve South Asian families, Sood says, adding that counselors also help victims with Kurdish, Afghan, Nigerian and Turkish backgrounds.

[...]

Sometimes violence stems from the desire to keep women isolated from the modern world.

“Girls are being beaten up for things like having a mobile phone,” says Sanghera, 41, who runs the Karma Nirvana shelter for women in Derby, England. The group deals with seven forced marriages a week, and about four cases each month of people under the threat of murder, she says.

Typical of those seeking help is an 18-year-old who asked to be identified only as Serena. She says she sought help through Karma Nirvana after her father beat her repeatedly for six years. After a suicide attempt at 15, she was sent to Pakistan and kept there for a year before she returned to a hostile home.

“The whole house was against me — dad, mum, sisters, all of them,” she says. “Then I took a big step and went for a fresh start.” After four months on the run, Serena is taking classes and maintaining phone contact with her mother from the city where she’s in hiding. “If my uncles find out where I am, they will kill me for sure,” she says.

[...]

“Communities would prefer to turn a blind eye, and anyone who raises the issue is either a racist or an Islamophobe,” [Member of Parliament Ann] Cryer says at a tea lounge at the House of Parliament.

16 January 2007 >> Britain’s Observer reports that “[a]n undercover investigation has revealed disturbing evidence of Islamic extremism at a number of Britain’s leading mosques and Muslim institutions, including an organisation praised by the Prime Minister.”:

Secret video footage reveals Muslim preachers exhorting followers to prepare for jihad, to hit girls for not wearing the hijab, and to create a ’state within a state’. Many of the preachers are linked to the Wahhabi strain of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia, which funds a number of Britain’s leading Islamic institutions.

A forthcoming Channel 4 Dispatches programme paints an alarming picture of how preachers in some of Britain’s most moderate mosques are urging followers to reject British laws in favour of those of Islam. Leaders of the mosques have expressed concern at the preachers’ activities, saying they were unaware such views were being disseminated.

At the Sparkbrook mosque, run by UK Islamic Mission (UKIM), an organisation that maintains 45 mosques in Britain and which Tony Blair has said ‘is extremely valued by the government for its multi-faith and multicultural activities’, a preacher is captured on film praising the Taliban. In response to the news that a British Muslim solider was killed fighting the Taliban, the speaker declares: ‘The hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulders.’

Another speaker says Muslims cannot accept the rule of non-Muslims. ‘You cannot accept the rule of the kaffir [non-Muslim],’ a preacher, Dr Ijaz Mian, tells a meeting held within the mosque. ‘We have to rule ourselves and we have to rule the others.’

Britain’s Jihadists aren’t stupid. They know that the soft underbelly of the West is our blind support of multiculturalism. Assimilation is rejected in favor of each community maintaining its own separate oasis. And thanks to political correctness, anyone who questions the wisdom of this is immediately branded an insensitive bigot. So most Westerners, whose social behaviors have been molded by an educational system in which being labeled a racist is perhaps the worst human offense, keep quiet because the threat of Jihadists among them is not yet apparent. The question is, will the West wake up before it’s too late? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, the video taken from within the so-called moderate mosques is chilling. If this doesn’t serve as a wake-up call, I don’t know what will.

---

Update: The entire Dispatches: Undercover Mosque program is now available on Google Video.

30 November 2006 >> France launches airstrikes against an African town. Surprisingly, there are no demands yet that French foreign policy be submitted to the rest of the world for approval.

5 November 2006 >> Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe reports on a few fronts in the global Jihad:

Australia: Australia’s foremost Muslim cleric triggers an uproar when he likens women who don’t wear an Islamic headscarf to “uncovered meat” and blames them for attracting sexual predators.

Afghanistan: The kidnappers of Italian photojournalist Gabriele Torsello threaten to murder him unless Abdul Rahman, an Afghan Christian convert, is returned to Afghanistan and handed over to an Islamic court.

Iran: The president of Iran calls Israel “a group of terrorists” and threatens to harm any country that supports the Jewish state. “This is an ultimatum,” warns Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for the elmination of Israel and the United States.

Thailand: Islamist terrorists bomb a column of Buddhist monks as they collect offerings of food in Narathiwat, a city in southern Thailand. One person is killed; 12 are injured.

France: “We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists,” says police union leader Michel Thoomis. “This is not a question of urban violence any more. It is an intifadah, with stones and firebombs.”

Britain: In a “true Islamic state,” sexually active homosexuals would be executed, says Arshad Misbahi, an imam in Manchester’s Central Mosque.

Meanwhile, Muslim Kurds in Iraq prefer to live in peace:

There are no insurgents in Kurdistan. Nor are there any kidnappings. [...] Iraqi Kurdistan is optimistic, full of hope, infused top to bottom with a go-go, build-build attitude.

Who would have thought that a glimmer of hope for peaceful coexistence with our Muslim brothers could be found in—of all places—Iraq?

26 October 2006 @ 8:59AM >> Political rumblings in Amsterdam:

Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk is in favour of imposing a ban on the wearing of a burka in public spaces.

The Liberal VVD told MPs on Thursday night the face-covering clothing is a symbol of division (between the West and Islam) and was not in harmony with the integration of Muslims and the emancipation of women.

[...]

One of the options being studied is whether a general ban on the burka is possible under current regulations. It will then also be assessed whether a ban wearing a burka can be justified based on issues of safety and public order.

The final option is whether a ban can be imposed via existing regulations such as a general local ordinance or compulsory identification laws.

Government ministers had been called back to the Parliament to explain why they had not yet imposed a ban on the burka, as demanded by MPs in December at the initiative of Geert Wilders. It had previously been revealed that the cabinet was divided over the issue.

By itself, the wearing of a burqa in public is not “symbol of division” in a Western society, it’s merely a symbol of that society’s ability to incorporate people from different backgrounds. There’s nothing wrong with a burqa per se, as long as it is worn voluntarily.

A grave threat to Western culture is the murderous intolerance shown by some radical Muslims to our core values, like that of free thought and free speech. But we have other important values, such as the freedom to worship (or not) as we please—as long as one’s actions don’t infringe upon someone else’s rights.

The way to address the fact that there are some Jihadists in the Muslim world who need to be defeated is not to strip all Muslims of their right to wear religious attire. Doing so does nothing to further the integration of Muslims, it only serves as a signal that they are not welcome.

Western cultures will go down a dangerous path if we start outlawing legitimate, non-violent and uncoerced expressions of faith.

23 October 2006 >> Britain’s Daily Mail reports that bigwigs at the BBC—which publicly claims to be objective—privately admit to being anything but:

It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

A leaked account of an ‘impartiality summit’ called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC’s ‘diversity tsar’, wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.

[...]

Political pundit Andrew Marr said: ‘The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.’

Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to ‘correct’, it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it ‘no moral weight’.

Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall said he complained to a ‘very senior news executive’, about the BBC’s pro-multicultural stance but was given the reply: ‘The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it.’

If I were British, I’d be demanding to know why my television tax was funding what BBC insiders now privately admit is essentially political propaganda.

19 October 2006 @ 8:22AM >> Reporters often spout noble-sounding platitudes when defending decisions to publish sensitive national security information, but at the BBC, “the public’s right to know” is apparently not absolute:

The BBC has spent thousands of pounds of licence payers’ money trying to block the release of a report which is believed to be highly critical of its Middle East coverage.

The corporation is mounting a landmark High Court action to prevent the release of The Balen Report under the Freedom of Information Act, despite the fact that BBC reporters often use the Act to pursue their journalism.

The action will increase suspicions that the report, which is believed to run to 20,000 words, includes evidence of anti-Israeli bias in news programming.

The court case will have far reaching implications for the future working of the Act and the BBC. If the corporation loses, it will have to release thousands of pages of other documents that have been held back.

Like all public bodies, the BBC is obliged to release information about itself under the Act. However, along with Channel 4, Britain’s other public service broadcaster, it is allowed to hold back material that deals with the production of its art, entertainment and journalism.

In Britain, anyone with a television must pay an involuntary tax—the “license fee”—in order to fund the BBC and other outlets. It’s too bad the BBC doesn’t think those taxpayers have a right to know how their money is being spent.

18 October 2006 @ 1:02PM >> We’re told the world dislikes the United States for, among other things, holding terror suspects in facilities like Guantanamo Bay. But if the criticism has merit, I wonder why other countries seem unwilling to take these prisoners:

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett last week issued the latest European demand to close down the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The existence of the prison is “unacceptable” and fuels Islamic radicalism around the world, she said, echoing a recent chorus of complaints from Europe about U.S. counterterrorism policy.

Behind the scenes, however, the British government has repeatedly blocked efforts to let some prisoners leave Guantanamo and return home.

According to documents made public this month in London, officials there recently rejected a U.S. offer to transfer 10 former British residents from Guantanamo to the United Kingdom, arguing that it would be too expensive to keep them under surveillance. Britain has also staved off a legal challenge by the relatives of some prisoners who sued to require the British government to seek their release.

Other European governments, which have been equally vocal in assailing Guantanamo as a human rights liability, have also balked at accepting prisoner transfers. A Turkish citizen who was born and raised in Germany was finally permitted to return from Guantanamo in August, four years after the German government turned down a U.S. proposal to release him.

The complaints against America’s policies seem like the tantrums of petulant adolescents. They gripe about living under daddy’s rules, but the last thing they’d do is move out if it meant having to pay their own way in the world.

It’s much easier to take principled stands when there aren’t any consequences.

15 October 2006 @ 3:59PM >> The New York Times reports that in Europe, “those normally seen as moderates — ordinary people as well as politicians — are asking whether once unquestioned values of tolerance and multiculturalism should have limits.”

15 October 2006 @ 3:50PM >> For British Airways employees, whether you’re allowed to wear religious garb depends on what religion you are:

British Airways has suspended a Christian woman who wears a necklace with a crucifix to work, even though it allows Muslims and Sikhs to wear headscarves and turbans, a newspaper reported overnight.

Nadia Eweida, 55, told the Daily Mail that she decided to sue her employer for religious discrimination after having been suspended without pay for three weeks.

“I will not hide my belief in the Lord Jesus. British Airways permits Muslims to wear a headscarf, Sikhs to wear a turban and other faiths religious apparel,” Ms Eweida said. “Only Christians are forbidden to express their faith.”

[...]

In a statement, British Airways said: “The case is ongoing, and is still under investigation, and as such it would be inappropriate to discuss it in detail. An appeal is due to be heard next week.

“British Airways does recognise that uniformed employees may wish to wear jewellery including religious symbols. Our uniform policy states that these items can be worn underneath the uniform,” it said.

“There is no ban. The rule applies for all jewellery and religious symbols on chains and is not specific to the Christian cross,” it said. “Other religious items such as turbans, hijabs and bangles can be worn as it is not practical for staff to conceal them beneath their uniforms.”

9 October 2006 @ 8:41AM >> I have always thought that Peter Beinart of The New Republic is one of the more sensible, intellectually honest voices on the left. His latest piece is an example why:

Last week, I went searching the liberal Web for discussions of Idomeneo. The Deutsche Oper, a Berlin opera house, had recently canceled the Mozart classic because it feared Muslims would react violently to a scene featuring Mohammed’s severed head. Germans declared that free speech was under siege. The New York Times covered every wrinkle. Right-wing websites buzzed. And, on the big liberal blogs, virtual silence.

If pressed, most liberal bloggers would probably have condemned the opera house’s decision. But they didn’t feel pressed. Blogging thrives on outrage (see, for instance, my colleague Martin Peretz’s outraged blogging on the affair at tnr.com/blog/spine), and the Idomeneo closure just didn’t get liberal blood flowing. And why is that? Perhaps because it didn’t have anything to do with George W. Bush.

[...]

In much of Europe, Muslim violence has become a serious threat to free speech. In publishing its cartoons of Mohammed last fall, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten performed a test: Is it possible to safely caricature the Prophet? The answer—received loud and clear by the Deutsche Oper—was no. Lower profile incidents confirm the point. Within days of the opera’s cancellation, a French philosophy teacher was placed under police protection for writing an article critical of Islam.

[...]

Liberals are less prone to a “clash of civilizations” mentality that undermines the very notion of free speech as a universal value. And that is why they must make the cause of European free speech their own. The best analogy is the “political correctness” fights that roiled college campuses in the late ’80s and early ’90s. When professors and students were punished for statements that violated racial and gender orthodoxy, it was conservatives like Dinesh D’Souza who most aggressively came to their defense. But many conservatives were tainted by their defense of the McCarthyite assault on campus free speech in the 1950s. In 1991, THE NEW REPUBLIC published a review of D’Souza’s book by the renowned Southern historian Eugene Genovese. “As one who saw his professors fired during the McCarthy era, and who had to fight, as a pro-Communist Marxist, for his own right to teach,” wrote Genovese, “I fear that our conservative colleagues are today facing a new McCarthyism.” Yet the conservatives, he argued, couldn’t defeat it alone. The cause of free speech “will go down, unless it is supported by a substantial portion of the left and center. ... It is time to close ranks.”

We have reached that point again. During the PC wars, many liberals were genuinely conflicted about whether free speech outweighed racial and gender sensitivity on campus. Today, some liberals still excuse censorship in sensitivity’s name. The bigger danger, however, is not sensitivity; it is indifference. Having adapted themselves so fully to a hyper-partisan environment, many liberals seem unable to conceive of a struggle in which the Republican right is not an enemy but an ally. But there are such struggles, and, without today’s activist liberals, they will be harder to win. Free speech is under threat, and Idomeneo should be the last straw. It is time, once again, to close ranks.

3 October 2006 @ 12:47PM >> Britain’s Daily Mail reports:

A hardline Muslim teacher who caused a furore by denouncing pupils for celebrating Christmas has been made a Government schools inspector.

Israr Khan’s Ofsted appointment was described by a former colleague as ‘absolutely astonishing’.

Mr Khan, now headmaster of an Islamic school, launched into his tirade during a concert rehearsal at Washwood Heath Secondary School in Birmingham in 1996 after the choir including around 40 Muslim youngsters, had sung a number of popular Christmas songs, including carols.

He leapt from his seat, yelling: “Who is your God? Why are you saying Jesus and Jesus Christ? God is not your God - it is Allah.”

As children in the audience began booing and clapping, a number of choir members - both white and Asian - walked out, some in tears.

[....]

It has been claimed that Washwood Heath school was then a ‘hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism’. Rashid Rauf - the airline terror bomb suspect whose extradition is currently being sought from Pakistan - was a pupil there at that time.

[...]

One Muslim father, who asked to be known only as Mohammed, said: “As a governor, Mr Khan will be able to exert a great deal of influence over the school and its policies.

“By his previous actions, he seems to represent what I would call a hardcore attitude to Islam.”

29 September 2006 @ 9:26AM >> Is Europe finally beginning to stand up against Jihadist intimidation? The controversy over a cancelled Mozart opera in Germany may be a turning point.

German chancellor some effect:

A controversial Mozart opera adapted to include a scene showing Mohammed’s severed head on stage appears set for a new run in Berlin after the German government said the show must go on as a “signal of closer dialogue” with the country’s 3.4m Muslims.

[...]

Badr Mohammed, head of Berlin’s European Integration Centre and one of the Muslim delegates to the conference, said the forum was a “historic breakthrough - an opportunity that Muslims must now grasp”.

[...]

Yet greater co-operation was already proving difficult on Wednesday night, as some of the representatives of Germany’s main Muslim organisations complained that the interior ministry had also invited independent Muslim experts to the forum, including women writers and lawyers who are highly critical of conservative Muslim traditions.

So it sounds like, although the current run of the show has been cancelled, it may be put on at some yet-to-be-determined time in the future.

We shall see. I’ve got a feeling this story isn’t over yet.

28 September 2006 @ 3:29PM >> In response to the Berlin opera story, a reader e-mails:

Hey Evan,

Isn’t it amazing how there is a global organized entity that is actually successful in dictating conversation to the rest of the world? Has that ever happened before? Seriously, when was the last time a single movement censored the rest of the world? The Nazis were not successful censoring the world, neither was the Soviet Union.

I find it astonishing that the entire world is currently censored by one entity. It’s like The Mob took over the world.

Regards,
Name Withheld For Fear of Retribution

26 September 2006 @ 8:53AM >> Europeans willingly give up more of their right to free expression out of a fear of violent mobs:

Berlin’s Deutsche Oper has removed the provocative staging of a Mozart opera from its schedule for fear of enraging Muslims, the opera house said in a statement.

One of three opera houses in the German capital, it cancelled director Hans Neuenfels’s production of “Idomeneo”, a 1781 drama set in ancient Crete, because authorities warned it could present an “incalculable security risk”.

In the staging, which sparked audience protests during its premiere in December 2003, King Idomeneo presents the lopped-off heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddha and the Prophet Mohammed and displays them on four chairs.

Notice that the heads of Jesus and Buddha are also cut off. But for some reason, there’s no “fear of enraging” Christians or Buddhists.

20 September 2006 >> This quote isn’t from a rioter in Syria, Iran or Saudi Arabia; it’s from a speaker at a “peaceful” demonstration in London:

Muslims take their religion very seriously and non-Muslims must appreciate that and must also understand that there may be serious consequences if you insult Islam and the prophet.

Whoever insults the message of Mohammed is going to be subject to capital punishment.

I think that warning needs to be understood by all people who want to insult Islam and want to insult the prophet of Islam.

Unless this mindset magically disappears from the face of the earth, it seems we have three options:

1. Fight it,
2. Surrender our freedoms and say only what the Jihadists allow, or
3. Die.

Which would you prefer?

13 September 2006 >> In the London Telegraph, Anne Applebaum looks at Europe’s perception of the United States, and how it has changed—and stayed the same—since the days after the September 11th attacks:

Within a couple of days [after the attacks,] a Guardian columnist wrote of the “unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives anti-Americanism among swaths of the world’s population”. A Daily Mail columnist denounced the “self-sought imperial role” of the United States, which he said had “made it enemies of every sort across the globe”.

That week’s edition of Question Time featured a sustained attack on Phil Lader, the former US ambassador to Britain - and a man who had lost colleagues in the World Trade Centre - who seemed near to tears as he was asked questions about the “millions and millions of people around the world despising the American nation”. At least some Britons, like many other Europeans, were already secretly or openly pleased by the 9/11 attacks.

And all of this was before Afghanistan, before Tony Blair was tainted by his friendship with George Bush, and before anyone knew the word “neo-con”, let alone felt the need to claim not to be one.

The dislike of America, the hatred for what it was believed to stand for - capitalism, globalisation, militarism, Zionism, Hollywood or McDonald’s, depending on your point of view - was well entrenched. To put it differently, the scorn now widely felt in Britain and across Europe for America’s “war on terrorism” actually preceded the “war on terrorism” itself. It was already there on September 12 and 13, right out in the open for everyone to see.

After some future terrorist attack, we’ll hear lots of hand-wringing from people who say that our aggressive foreign policy invited the attack—in effect, we deserved it. But just as Europe’s disdain for America predates our response to 9/11, the hatred of the Jihadis was forged long before we invaded Afghanistan or Iraq.

During the quarter century that preceded the September 11th attacks, U.S. foreign policy towards the Jihadists was quite passive. From President Carter’s helplessness as dozens of Americans were held hostage for 444 days by Islamic revolutionaries in Iran, through the tail-between-the-legs pullouts in Beirut (President Reagan) and Somalia (President Clinton), the default bi-partisan American response to Jihadist provocation was to ignore it or to turn and run. And on the rare occasion that we strayed from that norm, whatever military response we did launch tended to be quite feeble. During this time, Jihadist attacks only grow more frequent and more deadly. Our passivity invited more attacks from people who were trying to get our attention.

And now that the Jihadists got our attention, many in Europe seem to wish they hadn’t. (Or, more accurately, that we’d continue to ignore them.)

I’m afraid that Europe will discover in the coming years that this is not an option. Since 9/11, the American homeland has remained free from attack, but there have been bombs in London and Madrid, riots all over France, a murder over a documentary film, and mass violence over cartoons. These events all have one thing in common, but Europe refuses to see it.

If we do suffer another attack on American soil, it will not be because our foreign policy invited it, but because our military campaign has not yet defeated the enemy. But if Europe is attacked again, it will likely be because they have not yet learned the lesson that we did five years ago.

I think Europe will come closer to America’s point of view...eventually. But unfortunately, it probably won’t be until after the Jihadists get the attention of Europe the way they got ours.

1 September 2006 >> The Inverted Logic Award goes to Hammasa Kohistani, “[t]he first Muslim to be crowned Miss England”:

“Even moderate Muslims are turning to terrorism to prove themselves. They think they might as well support it because they are stereotyped anyway.”

Makes sense. No better way to disprove the stereotype than by blowing some people up.

Ms. Kohistani added that “there is this hostility” which comes “mainly from the Government.”

Someone should remind the beauty queen that last summer’s London bombings suggest that “this hostility” might be coming from somewhere besides “the Government.”

Thankfully, there are a number of Muslims far more sensible than Ms. Kohistani:

“This sentiment of denial, that sort of came as a fever to the Muslim community after 9-11, is fading away,” said Muqtedar Khan, a political scientist at the University of Delaware and author of “American Muslims.” “They realize that there are Muslims who use terrorism, and the community is beginning to stand up to this.”

Muslim leaders point to two stark examples of the new mind-set:

A Canadian-born Muslim man worked with police for months investigating a group of Islamic men and youths accused in June of plotting terrorist attacks in Ontario. Mubin Shaikh said he feared any violence would ultimately hurt Islam and Canadian Muslims.

In England, it’s been widely reported that a tip from a British Muslim helped lead investigators to uncover what they said was a plan by homegrown extremists to use liquid explosives to destroy U.S.-bound planes.

[...]

Salam al-Marayati, executive director of Muslim Public Affairs Council, an advocacy group based in Los Angeles, says working closely with authorities underscores that Muslims are not outsiders to be feared. It also gives Muslims a way to directly air their concerns about how they’re treated by the government.

“We’re not on opposite teams,” al-Marayati said. “We’re all trying to protect our country from another terrorist attack.”

In 2004, his group started the “National Anti-Terrorism Campaign,” urging Muslims to monitor their own communities, speak out more boldly against violence and work with law enforcement. Hundreds of U.S. mosques have signed on, al-Marayati said.

[...]

Imam Muhammad Musri, head of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, said he has tried to address this problem in the eight mosques he oversees in the Orlando area.

He regularly invites law enforcement officials to speak with local Muslims and encourages mosque members to come to him with any suspicions, even if they overhear something said in jest. Musri says he also speaks regularly with local FBI and police to establish a relationship in case a real threat emerges.

“Here in Central Florida, talking to most people, they are literally upset by the actions of Muslims—or so-called Muslims—overseas in Europe and the Middle East, because they say, ‘We wish they would come and see how we’re doing here,’” Musri said. “We know who the real enemy is—someone who might come from the outside and try to infiltrate us. Everybody is on the lookout.”

21 August 2006 @ 8:54AM >> Associated Press reports:

Italian police were searching yesterday for a man suspected of involvement in the killing of a Pakistani woman after her father and uncle were charged with slitting her throat because she dated an Italian man and refused to conform to an Islamic lifestyle.

Investigators believe the third suspect helped the father and uncle kill Hina Saleem, 21. The woman’s body was found buried in the family’s garden in Sarezzo on Saturday. Her father and uncle were taken into custody on Monday.

Investigators said they were looking into the theory that the grave was dug before the woman was killed. It is thought a long kitchen knife was used to slit her throat.

15 August 2006 >> London’s Daily Mail reports:

A five-year-old girl’s passport application was rejected because it shows her bare shoulders and might offend Muslims.

Hannah Edwards’s mother Jane, a Sheffield GP, was told that her daughter’s exposed skin may be considered offensive in a Muslim country.

The photograph was taken in a booth at a local post office for a family trip to the south of France.

However, when the family presented it at the post office with the completed form, they were told it would not be accepted by the Passport Office.

Mrs Edwards said she was furious when a woman behind the counter said she was aware of at least two other applications that had been rejected because a person’s shoulders were not covered.

Mrs Edwards said: “I was incensed. I went back home and checked the form. Nowhere did it say anything about covering up shoulders. If it had, I would have done so, but it all seems so unnecessary.

[...]

A spokesman for the Identity and Passport Service said it was not its policy to reject applications with bare shoulders.

“Our offices have a Passport Office template which says which says what the photograph should and shouldn’t be. Bare shoulders don’t come into that at all.

“It is the first time we have heard of such a rejection and we will take it up with that particular office.”

10 August 2006 >> Since the attacks of September 11th, many Americans have been wondering when the next big attack would come. This morning, America woke up to the news that a coordinated attack—what intelligence officials referred to as “the big one”—might have been thwarted.

Time Magazine reports that the “U.S. picked up the suspects’ chatter and shared it with British authorities,” who then rounded up 24 people who were involved in planning simultaneous attacks on 9 different planes:

Their plan was to smuggle the peroxide-based liquid explosive TATP and detonators onto nine different planes from four carriers — British Airways, Continental, United and American — that fly direct routes between the U.K and the U.S. and blow them up mid-air. Intelligence officials estimate that about 2,700 people would have perished, according to the official.

Britain’s MI-5 intelligence service and Scotland Yard had been tracking the plot for several months, but only in the past two weeks had the plotters’ planning begun to crystallize, senior U.S. officials tell TIME. In the two or three days before the arrests, the cell was going operational, and authorities were pressed into action. MI5 and Scotland Yard agents tracked the plotters from the ground, while a knowledgeable American official says U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group’s communications.

I’m waiting for the media to start demanding answers from our elected officials: Were these intercepts constitutional? Was anyone’s phone tapped? Were warrants necessary and were they obtained properly?

Sure, 2,700 people might have been saved, but at what cost to our principles?

11 April 2006 >> If agreeing to a date with someone meant that you had to marry and spend the rest of your life with that person, how many dates would you go on?

France puts employers in much the same position. Once someone is hired, French employment laws make it virtually impossible for that person to be fired. Naturally, this makes companies quite leery about taking on new employees. It’s a huge risk to hire someone who might prove to be lazy or incompetent down the road. But in France, lifetime employment laws mean that employers are stuck.

This sort of economic thinking is one of the reasons that the French unemployment rate for people under 30 rivals the American unemployment rate during the Great Depression. It is also one of the reasons that the French government quite sensibly tried to reform the law.

The proposed change—intended to make hiring younger workers more palatable—was quite modest: new hires under the age of 26 could be fired within the first two years of employment. This way, companies could make sure there’d be a good fit before being locked in to a lifetime commitment. Companies would be more likely to hire people if there was less of a risk of hiring someone who might not work out.

But in France, the prospect of having to earn your job through sustained good performance was just too much for people to bear. So the country erupted in mass strikes and riots, as it tends to do for various reasons every few months. The leadership of France saw all this turmoil and surrendered yet again, as it tends to do every few years:

French President Jacques Chirac has announced that the new youth employment law that sparked weeks of sometimes violent protests will be scrapped.

He said it would be replaced by other measures to tackle youth unemployment.

Millions of students and union members have taken to the streets over the last month in protest against the law, which made it easier to fire young workers.

[...]

The new package of measures includes offering state support for employers hiring young people who face the most difficulties in gaining access to the labour market.

Apparently, the French have figured out that the way to cure the problems of socialism is with more socialism. That hasn’t worked anywhere else on the planet, but I wish the French the best with their noble experiment.

8 March 2006 @ 12:46PM >> London’s Daily Mail reports:

Surfing the Internet is now more popular than watching television, according to new figures.

On average, adults in Britain spend more time online at their computers - 41.5 days a year - than in front of the TV.

Government figures from the Office of National Statistics show that we spend just 37.5 days a year watching television.

It is believed to be the first time that using the Internet has overtaken what was traditionally seen as the nation’s favourite pastime.

Two-thirds of the survey respondents indicated that they spend an increasing amount of time online every year.

I suspect this trend is not limited to Britain, and it will be magnified as more people come online and as high-speed broadband connections become increasingly available.

This means that establishment media audiences will continue to become fragmented, and that there is a tremendous opportunity for distributing new content online. The traditional gatekeepers will find fewer and fewer people lining up at the gates.

20 February 2006 @ 5:22PM >> The London Telegraph reports:

Four out of 10 British Muslims want sharia law introduced into parts of the country, a survey reveals today.

15 February 2006 >> The Iranian government is upset over a new cartoon published in the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel.

Shown in the cartoon are four soccer players with “Iran” on their uniforms standing field-level in a stadium. The soccer players also have explosives wrapped around their midsections. According to a statement from the Iranian embassy in Berlin, the cartoon has incited “outrage among the Iranian people.” (Uh oh! That doesn’t sound good!) And Manuchehr Sandi, a leader from the Iranian Press Association, called on Germany to give an “appropriate reaction” to the cartoon. (If you’re in the Iranian press, I guess it’s natural to assume that all governments are responsible for the content of their nation’s media.)

While we wait to see how many people are killed and buildings torched as a result of this cartoon, here’s some unsolicited advice for the Iranian government:

If you spent as much time denouncing suicide bombing as you spend denouncing cartoons, perhaps there’d be fewer cartoons mocking you as terrorists.

Just a thought.

10 February 2006 >> Shortly after September 11th, when President Bush said Islamic terrorists “hate freedom,” critics derided his statement as a simplistic dodge. Freedom couldn’t be the problem, it must be U.S. foreign policy. It must be arrogant American imperialism. It must be anything that places the blame on us and absolves the terrorists of responsibility. After all, no rational person could hate freedom, right? Well, take a look around. To a frighteningly large number of people on this planet, freedom is the enemy.

21 November 2005 @ 12:57PM >> Slowly but surely, the corruption of French and U.N. officials is being exposed:

One of France’s most distinguished diplomats has confessed to an investigating judge that he accepted oil allocations from Saddam Hussein [...]

Jean-Bernard Merimee is thought to be the first senior figure to admit his role in the oil-for-food scandal, a United Nations humanitarian aid scheme hijacked by Saddam to buy influence.

The Frenchman, who holds the title “ambassador for life”, told authorities that he regretted taking payments amounting to $156,000 [...]

The money was used to renovate a holiday home he owned in southern Morocco. At the time, Mr Merimee was a special adviser to Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general.

[...]

The ambassador said the French authorities had known of his every move. France has been gravely embarrassed by oil-for-food allegations against senior figures, including Charles Pasqua, the former interior minister. He has denied receiving any benefit from the oil allocations issued in his name.

Inquiries have also found that French firms benefited disproportionately from oil-for-food contracts as part of an Iraqi policy to influence French votes on the UN Security Council.