EUROPE'S "PHILOSOPHICAL" PROBLEM

Really a problem of government-enforced uniformity

France, England, Holland, Germany and some other countries are reeling from it now. It is the controversy over young Muslim women wearing the veil in schools. But I do not agree with a recent reviewer, David A. Bell, in The New Republic, who exclaimed, "This is one of the strangest, most philosophically rattling, controversies in recent European memory ..." He said this after observing that "Jack Straw, the leader of the British House of Commons, recently attacked the wearing of veils as a 'visible statement of separation and of difference,' and requested that women remove them when visiting him."

The reason this is little more than hyperbole is that a philosophically rattling controversy would have to be far more basic, bear on far more fundamental issues, than does the one about wearing veils in public. For example, "Is there a God?" or "Are human beings free?" or "Can the human mind understand things as they really are?" Now those would be philosophical.

This isn't to say that the veil issue is insignificant. But there is a plain enough solution to it and in America that solution has been tried in some areas of our highly diverse culture. This is to significantly diminish the public square. If one keeps much of society-church, home, work, recreation, travel and the like-within the private sector, there can be an unexpected measure of diversity about how people comport themselves without this posing any kind of controversy. Yes, in America we also face the (by no means philosophically but otherwise) bothersome controversy of what to do with young people who are herded into public schools as a matter of the nearly one-size-fits-all public policy of coercive and publicly funded education. But that's kind of a relic and all the fuss about school choice and charter schools and independent schools testifies to this fact.

In a bona fide free country different groups of people with their different religious and philosophical convictions, habits, rituals and such have no trouble following their own ways. That is because of the institution of private property rights! Yes, Virginia, the right to private property accommodates all such peaceful differences among a citizenry. Only when people are drafted, conscripted into some sphere, such as primary and secondary schools, do troubles arise. (Just ask the Amish about all this; they'll tell you a sorry story.) Indeed, ever since the U. S. military has eliminated conscripting young citizens into the services, they, too, no longer face this problem of the impossible, uncomfortable, often offensive mix. American society, with its innumerable ethnic and religious and other culturally divers groups manages to do quite well provided people aren't coercively made to mingle. Of course, when you extort money from everyone, via taxes, so as to pay for various practices that some object to, such as stem cell or climate change research, abortion, publishing propaganda in support of (or against) sex education and so forth, then trouble is not far away. That's because peaceful mingling is, well, peaceful but coerced mingling produces considerable acrimony.

If so-called public resources or public spheres are utilized for some purposes but not others, those among the public not favoring the purpose that benefits from such resources or is provided space in such spheres will be upset. To use what is "ours" for goals that are not in fact ours at all is naturally going to be found objectionable. Why should Roman Catholics, whose religion rejects abortion, have to pay for abortion clinics? It places them into a morally unacceptable situation, namely, funding what they consider morally wrong. Why should a school that wants to make it possible for all students to learn without distraction have to admit and make room for a few who insist on displaying their faith for all to have to confront?

In a free country, however, these problems are solved by the institution of the right to private property-different groups can practice their ways without imposing them on others within their own borders. In the very few public places, such as, say, a court house, the rules of the public realm would apply to all equally! And that is hardly a source of major displeasure. But the same isn't true when it comes to such phony public places as a community swimming pool. There, if one is coerced into some uniform practice of, say, wearing a certain kind of bathing garb, members of some groups will object and justifiably feel put upon.

So, it turns out Europe's main philosophically troubling controversy is manageable along lines shown by much of American society-place borders around groups so they can exclude those who refuse to conform and subject only the very few public spaces adhere to uniform policies.

Source



Before CAIR and the Flying Imams, the Islamic Society of Boston had already pioneered the use of lawsuits to silence their critics and the media

You are a graduate of Egypt's Al-Azhar University, the foremost religious school in Sunni Islam. You've grown up in Egypt, earned a BA, MA and PhD from the prestigious academy, and have spent your life as a believing and devout Muslim in the heart of the religious establishment. Your religion, and your belief that Islam is a force for good in the world, is something you've built your life around. You believe there is no contradiction between your faith, democracy, and modern standards of human rights, and you dedicate yourself to writing and speaking in support of your beliefs.

And it's for those beliefs that a canonical court expels you from Al-Azhar. You are imprisoned for a short time by the Egyptian Government. Finally a Wahhabist fatwa calling for your assassination forces you to flee the country. You flee to political asylum in America, where you can, you hope, continue to explore your beliefs and practice your religion without fear for life and limb at the hands of fanatics. Then one day you visit a local mosque..

In late 2003, after visiting the local Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ahmed Mansour and his wife emerged in what can only be described as a state of shock. Mansour's wife had attended a religious lesson and Mansour himself browsed the literature on display. According to the affidavit of Dennis Hale (PDF), Episcopal Lay Minister, Boston College Professor and founder of Citizens for Peace and Tolerance, Mansour informed him that "both the religious lesson and the Arabic newsletters inside the mosque were full of hateful references against the West and Jews." In particular, he noted that the mosque was touting a fund-raising endorsement for their new mosque project featuring infamous Wahabbi cleric and pitch-man for the Muslim Brotherhood, Sheik Yousef Al-Qaradawi.

Shocked to see that the poison he thought he had left behind, the poison he thought was an ocean away but was following him to America, Mansour spoke out about what he had seen. As thanks for stepping forward, Mansour has found himself a defendant in a wide-ranging defamation lawsuit, a lawsuit that has involved television and print media outlets, activist organizations, and individuals - anyone, it seemed, who had dared speak or repeat anything less than complimentary about the Islamic Society of Boston. What the Wahhabis had failed to do in Egypt, the exploitation of the American legal system threatens to do here - ruin the life of a moderate Muslim and anyone who stands with him.

A Flawed Founding

The Islamic Society of Boston was founded in 1982 by then university student Abdurahman Alamoudi, who became its first president. Ten years later, according to the Hale document, Alamoudi "appeared in a videotaped rally in Washington, D.C. where he publicly supported Hamas and Hezbollah." In "2003 and 2004, Alamoudi was indicted and pled guilty to a series of terrorist-related charges arising from a fraudulent scheme to assist Libya in raising money to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia." This scheme included, according to a background piece appearing in The New Republic, "providing approximately $1 million to an organization that supports Al Qaeda." Alamoudi "was sentenced to 23 years in prison."

The ISB was organized under the tax exempt umbrella of the Islamic Society of North America, which was itself a spin-off of the Wahhabist Muslim Student Association, and has been called "an influential front for the promotion of the Wahhabi political, ideological and theological infrastructure in the United States and Canada."

"This is how it should be. Religion must lead the war. This is the only way we can win."

From humble beginnings came big plans. A 2003 Boston Herald article quotes an ISB attorney as saying their new project had been in the works for a decade. According to the article:

A project update in the Islamic Society of Boston's May 2000 newsletter reported that in the previous month alone, the group raised $2 million in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states.

One source familiar with the project who spoke on the condition he not be named said the leaders of the Islamic society have made it clear that virtually all the financing for the cultural center is coming from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Gulf states.

Many mosques and Islamic institutions in the U.S. are funded by wealthy individuals and foundations in Saudi Arabia. Those financiers are almost without exception followers of Wahhabism, a harsh Saudi-based fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, and they make sure the American mosques they bankroll adhere to the sect's anti-Western ideology.

In fact, the Boston Herald, with its two part special report (both articles available here, on the web site of The David Project: Radical Islam: Outspoken cleric, jailed activist tied to new Hub mosque, Under suspicion: Hub mosque leader tied to radical groups) was one of the first major media outlets to pick up on what was soon to become a burning controversy, pulling into the public consciousness something that had up until then been passing well under the radar.

The articles noted the involvement and history of terror-connected Abdurahman Alamoudi in the ISB, as well as, and just as disturbingly, the involvement of the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual adviser, Sheik Yousef Al-Qaradawi. Qaradawi is quoted as supporting terrorist attacks against Israelis and Americans. He has boycotted interfaith efforts where Israelis were invited. He has justified the stoning of homosexuals. He has called for a "Day of Rage" following the Danish Cartoon Crisis. He has said the following:

"They fight us with Judaism, so we should fight them with Islam. They fight us with the Torah, so we should fight them with the Koran. If they say `the Temple,' we should say `the Al-Aqsa Mosque.' If they say: `We glorify the Sabbath,' we should say: `We glorify the Friday.' This is how it should be. Religion must lead the war. This is the only way we can win.".

"Everything will be on our side and against Jews on [Judgment Day]; at that time, even the stones and the trees will speak, with or without words, and say: `Oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim, there's a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' They will point to the Jews.

On and on like that goes Qaradawi's record. He is regularly referred to, without intentional irony, as a "moderate" in his Middle Eastern milieu. Qaradawi, according to the Herald, was listed as an ISB board member for at least three years, and was, and still is, a proposed trustee on the real estate trust as well. In a widely circulated response to the series, including in a comment on my blog, the ISB stated that his inclusion had been in effect an "administrative oversight," and that Qaradawi does not accept such positions in any case. The point, it seems to me, is that they wanted him. He was, according to the statement, invited due to his "popularity within the Muslim community."

The ISB maintains a page in response to the articles on their own web site. They claim no significant connections to either Alamoudi or Qaradawi. In fact, they claim no contact with Alamoudi since he left Boston in 1984, though discovery brought about by the ISB's lawsuit (more on that later) has uncovered a check on behalf of the ISB to pay Alamoudi's expenses for a speaking engagement in late 2000, and ISB Trustee Osama Kandil (himself targeted in the Herald series with accusations denied by the ISB) signed the "Free Abdurahman Alamoudi" petition - a petition that calls the terror-supporting Alamoudi "our community leader" - sometime in `03 or `04.

"Connections to radicals have plagued the Mosque."

Following the ISB's denial of a Qaradawi connection, the Herald uncovered the fact that the Sheik's endorsement was used in an Arabic-only fundraising brochure in 2003 which the paper obtained and had independently translated. Other apparent connections to radicals have plagued the Mosque. For instance, the group has invited the Muslim Brotherhood connected Dr. Salah Soltan as a speaker. Soltan is an advocate for suicide bombing, and has praised terrorist Sheik Al-Zindani among other things. Another society guest has been Imam Siraj Wahaj, a character witness for the "blind sheik" Omar Rahman, and a man who "calls for replacing the American government with a caliphate."

But perhaps the most embarrassing series of episodes involved Saudi Arabia-based ISB trustee, Dr. Walid Fitaihi. After an initial charm offensive targeted at Boston's Jewish Community which had prominent Rabbis singing Fitaihi's praises, disturbing facts soon came to light which had the community humming a different sort of tune. It emerged that Fitaihi, in more comfortable surroundings back home, had been more candid about his feelings. The Middle East Media Research Institute had found some of Fitaihi's writings. Shortly after September 11, Fitaihi had written:

"Despite the attacks of distortion coordinated by the Zionist lobby, to which it has recruited many of the influential media, there are initial signs that the intensive campaign of education about Islam has begun to bear fruit.Jewish institutions have begun to contact Muslim institutions and have called on us to hold dialogues with them and cooperate [with them]. They are afraid of the outcome of the Islamic-Christian dialogue through the churches, the mosques, and the universities."

"Thus, the Muslim community in the U.S. in general, and in Boston in particular, has begun to trouble the Zionist lobby. The words of the Koran [3:113] on this matter are true: `They will be humiliated wherever they are found, unless they are protected under a covenant with Allah, or a covenant with another people. They have incurred Allah's wrath and they have been afflicted with misery. That is because they continuously rejected the Signs of Allah and were after slaying the Prophets without just cause, and this resulted from their disobedience and their habit of transgression.'"

"The great Allah spoke words of truth. Their covenant with America is the strongest possible in the U.S., but it is weaker than they think, and one day their covenant with the [American] people will be cut off."

When confronted with this information, Fitaihi's response was to claim he was a victim of a false, "insulting," translation. The Herald, ever on the case, commissioned their own translation, and found MEMRI's interpretation of Fitaihi's writing to be correct.

"Jews will be `scourged' because of their `oppression, murder, and rape of the worshipers of Allah.'"

Fitaihi and the ISB retreated into embarrassed silence. Seven months later, the ADL got involved, sending a letter to the ISB with their concerns, calling upon them to "seize the opportunity to condemn and disassociate expressions of anti-Semitism," and noting that, "In the absence of such a clarification, other allegations against the ISB are gaining greater resonance, and there remains a contradiction between your values statement and your actions." The Boston Globe also noted that the ADL had a further translation of Fitaihi's writing, stating that he "wrote that Jews will be `scourged' because of their `oppression, murder, and rape of the worshipers of Allah.'"

The ISB finally responded with a clarification that still appears on their web site today, dated September 2004 (it's not clear why this pre-dates the ADL's October statement): ".the articles were intended to condemn particular individuals whom he believes were working to destroy one of Islam's holiest sites, killing innocent children, and thereby blocking the possibility of peace in the Middle East; the articles were not meant to incite hatred of an entire faith or people." In other words, "He wasn't talking about you GOOD Jews, he was talking about those BAD Jews." No better was ISB Board Chairman, Dr. Yousef Abou-Allabans response in a conversation with the Boston Phoenix about the incident:

Judging from Abou-Allaban's comments, its a stretch to say any repudiation actually took place."So how about Fitaihi's comments in the original Arabic? `We are against the statement as it was quoted in the paper,' he replied with a chuckle."

Ha ha.

More here



Australia: Muslim outrage at citizen test

MUSLIMS are outraged that prospective citizens will have to acknowledge the Judeo-Christian tradition as the basis of Australia's values system. Australia's peak Muslim body said the proposed citizenship question - revealed in the Herald Sun - was disturbing and potentially divisive. Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Dr Ameer Ali said the "Abrahamic tradition" or "universal values" would be less divisive ways of describing the nation's moral base. Dr Ali said use of the term Judeo-Christian was the result of "WWII guilt", and before 1945 Australia would have been called only Christian. "That question must be rephrased," he said.

Dr Ali was backed by Democrats senator Lyn Allison, who said the answer to the question was highly debatable. But Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews stood firm on the merit of the question. Mr Andrews said Australia's Judeo-Christian heritage was indisputable historical fact. "We are not asking people to subscribe to the Judeo-Christian ethic," he said. "We are simply stating a fact that this is part of the heritage of Australia in terms of its foundation. "This is not an exercise in political correctness. It is trying to state what has been the case and still is the case."

But Health Minister Tony Abbott confused the issue, saying the modern Australian values system was secular, or of no particular religion. The Herald Sun yesterday revealed 20 key questions, developed in consultation with Mr Andrews, that are likely to be asked of would-be citizens. Mr Andrews said the test, to begin by September, would help immigrants integrate into society better. "We celebrate diversity and people are free to continue their own traditions, but we are also very insistent that we have to build and maintain social cohesion," he said.

Dr Ali said he would request a meeting with Mr Andrews to discuss the question. "It is the wrong message we are sending," he said. Senator Allison said the test was pointless. "I don't see what it's going to achieve," she said. "It doesn't say anything about people's character, whether they are going to be good citizens." Opposition immigration spokesman Tony Burke said Labor agreed in principle with the test, but wanted details.

Source

*************************

Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

***************************