Speech and Intention

As Islam makes further in-roads into Western societies that have a tradition of free speech, we are witnessing an intensification of the inevitable conflict between the freedom to question and ponder and the desire to prevent speech critical of Islam.

Whilst revisiting the blog of Mark Durie recently I came across a very good series of articles that shed light on these issues and more generally on why people say what they do: to reveal, to question, to conceal, to threaten, to illuminate.

The first is an opinion piece by the journalist Paul Sheehan in the Sydney Morning Herald in which he gives voice to an observation that many non-Muslims have pondered, namely, that Islamic texts are routinely used to justify killing and persecution in the name of Islam. See

Twisting Islam to Justify Cruelty

The second is what can only be described as an attack on Paul Sheehan and freedom of speech by Randa Abdel Fattah, a PhD candidate in sociology, in which she deploys the familiar tactics of guilt by association, smearing, and victimology to argue that any examination of Islam’s scriptures risks turning the ire of non-Muslims on powerless Muslims. This being an example of how free speech arguments are used to reinforce existing power imbalances. 

Free speech used to mobilize hatred of Muslims

The third is a rejoinder by a Dr Mohamad Abdallah, which argues that Paul Sheehan is not competent to interpret the Koran or Hadith and that a scholarly interpretation looking at verses in their proper context suggests a much more moderate interpretation.

Critical opinion of Islam ignores the fundamental truths

The fourth article is by Dr Mark Durie, in which he takes on Dr Mohamad Abdallah’s challenge to interpret the problematic verses in their proper context and to be informed by the customary interpretations offered by authoritative Muslim scholars.  What he discovers is that context is not a magic wand that always makes the interpretation more benign but can also make it worse.

Violence and Context in Islamic Texts

I'm sure you can judge for yourself which speakers have the most honourable intentions.

Elisabeth and Asia

On 25th October 2018, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) reached a decision in respect of the case of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff. They determined that protection under Article 10 (freedom of expression) did not apply in her case and thus upheld the judgement of the Austrian court that had convicted her for “denigrating religious beliefs”.

A good summary of the case can be found here. In brief, Elisabeth gave a series of lectures in 2009 in which she addressed the dangers of fundamentalist Islam. A left-leaning magazine, News, planted a journalist in the audience to make recordings of what was said. Having done this the magazine handed the recordings to the public prosecutor’s office as evidence of "hate speech" against Islam.

What Elisabeth actually said, in the context of a discussion about Muhammad’s marriage to six-year-old Aisha was this: "A 56-year-old and a six-year-old? What do we call it, if it is not pedophilia?"

The prosecution started by attempting to convict her of “hate speech”. Hate speech is defined in Section 283 of the Austrian criminal code as (using Google Translate which does not actually have Austrian), publicly expressing views which may lead to the scorn or disparagement in the eyes of the public towards a group on the basis of religion, sexual orientation, race, etc.  So, if you say something which is actually true but can cause such effects on public opinion you are guilty of hate speech.

The prosecution went up various blind alleys in their attempt to prevent such statements of fact but eventually the judgement handed down was “denigration of religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion”. They imposed a fine of €480 or an alternative prison sentence of 60 days. Thus, however, repulsive or immoral the behaviour, if it is sanctioned by a legally recognized religion you cannot criticise it or even say what it is.

Elisabeth took her case to the EHCR in the hope of a rectification. Their judgement is a catalogue of mangled reasoning which offends logic.

The court began by stating that religious groups could not expect to be exempt from criticism. But if comments went beyond critical denial, “and certainly where they were likely to incite religious
intolerance, might a State legitimately consider them to be incompatible with respect for the
freedom of thought, conscience and religion and take proportionate restrictive measures.”

It’s not clear to me whose “religious intolerance” they are talking about but given this comes up in the context of religious groups and their exposure to criticism it seems to imply the people whose religion is being criticised. That being the case, the logic flowing from this is clear enough: the more intolerant a religious group is of criticism of their beliefs the less they can be criticised.

I can't help wondering what sort of contradictions of religious beliefs would not incite religious intolerance.

The EHCR further observed that the subject of the case was of a “particularly sensitive nature” and the State of Austria was “in a better position to evaluate which statements were likely to disturb the religious peace in their country.”

This can mean nothing other than riots and mobs; the assassination of judges, politicians and so forth.

“The Court noted that the domestic courts comprehensively explained why they considered that the
applicant’s statements had been capable of arousing justified indignation; specifically, they had not
been made in an objective manner contributing to a debate of public interest (e.g. on child
marriage), but could only be understood as having been aimed at demonstrating that Muhammad
was not worthy of worship.” And this could not possibly be true of a man who married a six-year-old girl?

But this above all shows how corrupted the thought processes of these judges has become: It agreed with the domestic courts that Mrs S. must have been aware that her statements were partly based on untrue facts and apt to arouse indignation in others.

What, pray, are “untrue facts”? It’s a contradiction in terms. Either they are facts and therefore true or they are not facts and therefore untrue. This is the grovelling level of “thinking” that the penultimate court in Europe is reduced to by the fear of the Muslim mob.

And their summing up: Under these circumstances, and given the fact that Mrs S. made several incriminating statements, the Court considered that the Austrian courts did not overstep their wide margin of appreciation in the instant case when convicting Mrs S. of disparaging religious doctrines. Overall, there had been no violation of Article 10. (my italics).

It's a long time since disparaging religious doctrines was a punishable offence in Europe, but now that Islam has arrived it's all going to change.

In Pakistan this last week, following the acquittal of Asia Bibi on blasphemy charges, the mobs erupted in fury that someone who has already spent 8 years in prison in terrible conditions was not going to be hanged for expressing a legitimate Christian opinion about (you guessed it) Muhammad. (Are Muslims allowed to worship Muhammad or is that not idolatry?)

What she said, after a dispute with her Muslim co-workers who claimed that their drinking water had been contaminated because she had drunk from the same vessel was this: I think Jesus would see it differently from Muhammad, Jesus died on the cross for the sins of mankind. What did your Prophet Muhammad ever do to save mankind?

Under Sharia, interfaith dialogue is somewhat restricted to say the least. You can listen politely to the Muslim perspective but you can’t propose anything different or criticise Islam. So poor Asia ended up incarcerated on death row and fearing every day that she would be killed in prison or eventually executed.

But light appeared to break through the clouds of religious darkness when the Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitted her. One was greatly relieved but felt anxious of the aftermath.

And justly so. The judges were threatened with death and as fundamentalists brought the mobs onto the streets demanding her execution one wondered how the situation might be resolved. Could she be whisked out of the country by Navy Seals; would President Trump give them an ultimatum and get her out?

It was not to be. The acquittal is now to be reviewed due to the level of social disorder aroused. The mob has won.

Behold, how Islam turns Muslim hearts to stone.

The authorities have struck a deal with the mob leaders which involves starting proceedings to prevent Asia from leaving the country (thus making it easier for them to hunt her down and kill her).
The government will also allow protesters to mount a legal challenge to the Supreme Court’s decision to acquit her.

What we see in these two cases is essentially the same thing. Fear of the Muslim mob drives decision-making. The European judges with all their muddle-headed thinking and weasel words has succumbed to the same forces of religious intolerance as the Pakistanis.

The problem is extremely widespread. For example, 100,000 UK Muslims signed a petition demanding Asia’s execution.

The EHCR claims to be upholding tolerance but they are bowing to intolerance of the worst kind. In fact, by this judgement, the EHCR has undermined one of the key foundations of European life: freedom of speech. This will have far more serious consequences than even the "disturbance of religious peace"...if indeed you can describe sitting on a box of explosives as peace.

We know these forces of intolerance are growing with every Muslim born in the West and every Muslim migrant arriving. The power of numbers will enable them to impose their rules on the rest of us. These dark days are only the beginning.

Boris and the Burka

It looks like Boris Johnson may face the Diversity Inquisition for his "insensitive" comments on the burka, more accurately known as the niqab, which is the one we see here.


If he does it will be another nail in the coffin for Britain's tradition of free speech, a tradition much finer than anything Islam has to offer.

Islam has a very ugly history of conquest, genocide, and enslavement, and unrelenting persecution of those with different beliefs.

None of this has ever been renounced nor is it likely to be since it is the inevitable outcome of Islam's core beliefs and the behavior of its prophet, Muhammad.

When I see a niqab-wearing woman (at least, I assume it's a woman), what I see is both a symbol of this history and the beliefs that inspired it and a statement of identification with and adherence to those beliefs and their consequences. The niqab suggests a strong adherence and identification; an unquestioning allegiance.

As I see it, the niqab is worn as a political weapon, not a religious observance.


This is why I am so averse to the sight of this garment.


There is another related feeling that I have towards the niqab. The garment is depersonalizing.

Persecution of others is often accompanied by an element of depersonalization (e.g. "the filthy kuffar"), and the depersonalizing experience triggered by the niqab makes me feel they are more capable of being persecutors. Psychological studies of anonymity have shown that people are far less inhibited when their identity is hidden and the evidence that Muslims persecute non-Muslims is overwhelming, see Raymond Ibrahim's Bulletin of Christian Persecution.

Double Standards in Response to Slavery

Admiral Lord Nelson

In the UK's Guardian an article has appeared called "Toppling Statues: Nelson's Column should be next", which seeks to set aside Nelson's brilliant achievements as an Admiral to defend Britain from invasion by Napoleon, and instead to embroil his memory in the current iconoclastic movement in the USA that seeks the removal of all historical figures who can be implicated in any way with slavery.

The argument goes that since Nelson was an obstacle to the abolition of slavery, this should be the sole criterion by which to judge his historical contribution. Nevermind that he fought bravely against another form of slavery, that of conquest by a foreign power.

Will this rule be applied to all those who owned, endorsed, or profited from slavery?

If so, there is one person in particular who should come under scrutiny. He owned slaves and advocated slavery. He encouraged his followers to make slaves of others and explicitly endorsed the sexual enslavement of women (“those whom your right hands possess”).

This person forbade images of himself to be created so there are no monuments erected in his image. However, there are monuments in his name springing up all over the world; monuments to a religion of slavery in which “Abdullah” (slave of Allah) is a common name. These monuments are called mosques.

Will the wrecking balls be visiting these monuments? I don't think so. Double standards in favour Islam are the contemporary hypocrisy.

See thereligionofpeace for a good summary of slavery in Islam. Here is a sample:

There is not, and never has been, an abolition movement in Islam.

Unlike the West, the Muslim world has yet to offer an apology for slavery.  The institution is ingrained in the Qur'an.  To admit that it is a mistake would be to admit the fallibility of the Qur'an and bring its divine origin into question.  Even today, Muslims act as if Islamic slavery was a favor done to the millions of unfortunate men, women and children who were forcibly uprooted from their native lands and sent to lives of sexual and menial servitude deep in the Islamic world. 

Ironically, the British Navy, where Nelson was such a significant figure, did an enormous amount to rid the world of slavery.

The Compassion of Donald Trump

The girl in the picture below is one of thousands of sex slaves taken by Islamic State in accordance with the example and teachings of Muhammad.

What on earth has this poor soul been through? We will never know but we can be pretty sure it has been hell. Such is the misogyny encoded in the "sacred" texts of Islam that the taking of sex slaves as war booty has Sharia's seal of approval. This is the result.

It is the tip of a huge iceberg. The abuse of women throughout the Muslim world, where customs and traditions do not escape the influence of Islam due to Islam's all-encompassing and dominating nature, is widespread, horrific, and legal.

This reality is not something that liberals have so far been able to face up to. They have adopted a well-known arsenal of deceptions, self-deceptions and assaults against free speech in order to deny this reality. They are loathe to let go of their view that Muslims are a harmless, oppressed minority with no more inclination towards terror and subjugation of unbelievers than anyone else; they adopt preposterous ideas such as "Muslims are the new Jews"; they avoid looking at Islamic doctrines and history because it might run counter to their fantastic pre-judgements.

There was an interesting display of this recently on the ironically named "Women's March" in Washington to protest the inauguration of Donald Trump.

Take a look at this short video where protestors are confronted with the statement "Islam is misogynistic". They display an unwillingness to talk about the issues around Islam's treatment of women; they claim that wanting to talk about these issues  is "hate"; they sidestep the issue with the usual claim that all religions are misogynistic; one speaker is very proud of herself for saying that all religions are inherently patriarchal; one man thinks he can't comment because "I'm not a Muslim". I've heard this kind of nonsense from liberals so often it hurts.

What is so shocking is not so much their ignorance as their indifference to their ignorance. They don't want to know.

Because they are so ignorant, they are easy prey for those wanting to exploit them. One of the march's main organizers, Linda Sarsour, is rather positive about the Sharia Law. She tweeted, "Shariah Law is reasonable and once u read into the details it makes a lot of sense. People just know the basics."

The Koran says, "O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given thee as spoils of war." (33:50). For commentary and justification of sex slavery by eminent scholars see here. I think Linda Sarsour would agree that these scholars know a lot more than the basics and they agree whole-heartedly that Sharia approves of sex slavery.

So the millions of victims of Islamic misogyny will have to find their salvation elsewhere. Maybe many of them are wishing Donald Trump every success in his stated goal of eradicating "radical Islamic extremism". Not blinded by the obsessive requirement to avoid any discrimination, Donald Trump is able to identify the people suffering the worst persecution and he wants to help them. That is real compassion. It is compassion born of courage; the courage to look facts in the face and to do what is necessary whilst millions of fools revile you; fools defined by their indifference to their own ignorance.

One

It was wholly unexpected.

40 years ago I craved such an experience but had given up on the idea; the path was strewn with paradoxes and deceptions; it appeared to require that I become a far better person than I could ever hope to be. And was any of it true anyway?

But whilst on holiday, preceded by a beautiful dream and an experience of the night sky 2 days before, it came. I had an experience of cosmic Oneness which put me in an ecstasy; the ground of all being was divine bliss, a bliss that is infinite and ever-lasting. I don’t know how long this experience lasted but it must have been about half an hour. It has transformed my perception of everything.

I wrote the following:

I felt Truth kiss me in the night; her kiss was pure and infinitely Light;
In that moment she taught me this: “The essence of Nature is infinite bliss.”
Both the I and the Me obscure Divine Reality,
But Beauty and Truth combined illuminate the mind.

What I experienced was cosmic unity, eternal and infinite. It was an experience shared by many mystics, saints, and poets. In his book, “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, William James quotes the words of Dr Bucke, a psychiatrist who had such experiences himself and studied those of others:

“The prime characteristic of cosmic consciousness is a consciousness of the cosmos, that is, of the life and order of the universe. Along with the consciousness of the cosmos there occurs an intellectual enlightenment which alone would place the individual on a new plane of existence-would make him almost a member of a new species. To this is added a state of moral exaltation, an indescribable feeling of elevation, elation, and joyousness, and a quickening of the moral sense, which is fully as striking, and more important than is the enhanced intellectual power. With these come what may be called a sense of immortality, a consciousness of eternal life, not a conviction that he shall have this, but the consciousness that he has it already.” [p.384 from the chapter on Mysticism]

One thing I have written about frequently on this blog is the paradigm shift from the Ptolemaic geocentric model of the universe to the Copernican. A shift which I often liken to our need to be less ego-centric. Ironically, it was by stepping back into a pre-Copernican view of the universe that the ground was prepared for the experience of cosmic Oneness. I saw a devotional universe in which all things were participants and expressions of the same blissful order.

The question obviously arises as to whether this is a special form of perception or a special form of deception.

My view is that it is a form of perception that occurs when the normal ego-based consciousness yields to a non-egoic form of consciousness. Instead of seeing things from the point of view of our limited, temporal ego we see them from the point of view of a universal self or non-ego.

This is why we cannot will these experiences. The will is of the ego and the ego is precisely that which needs to get out of the way.

I’ve been a big fan of Sam Harris and have dabbled with his advice on meditation. This video was an eye-opener for me (payment is required but for me it was money well spent) and his recommendation of D. E. Harding’s, “On having no head” was highly useful for developing the right kind of focus (away from the ego).

The key feature of this non-egoic perception is Oneness, a sense that all is one, one is all and that there is absolutely no separation from it.

The Third Patriarch of Zen puts it this way:

“When the ten thousand things are viewed in their oneness,
We return to the origin and remain where we have always been…
One in all,
All in One-
If only this is realized,
No more worry about not being perfect!
When Mind and each believing mind are not divided,
And undivided are each believing mind and Mind,
This is where words fail,
For it is not of the past, present or future.”

Quoted in Aldous Huxley’s “Perennial Philosophy” (p.89 - Chapter “God in the World”)

If the ego stands in the way of such experiences how are we to overcome it? This is the question of all true religion.

Goethe said,

“From the compulsion that all creatures binds, who overcomes himself his freedom finds.”

The “himself” here is the ego.

I am not a Christian and have been agnostic regarding God but I can see how many of the teachings of Jesus represent genuine guidance towards the Divine Reality. I’ve never understood the doctrine that he died to save us from our sins; it strikes me as a genuine misunderstanding.

“For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Luke 18:25

My reading of this is that the rich man has an augmented ego. He is self-satisfied and proud. It is this that blocks his path to the Kingdom of God, the experience of Oneness, which he can only reach via an absence of ego.

The dominance of the ego has to be overcome. This is scary for us because from an egoic point of view the ego is all that we are. It is vital to understand Jesus’ emphasis on humility and his own profoundly humble example.

This is also why Pride is the number one deadly sin. You’ll notice it is not murder. The deadly sins are really concerned with what blocks our way to the Divine Reality and they do this because they are all aspects of egoism, and Pride quintessentially so. Pride is that quality of puffed-up-ness which prevents us from passing through the eye of the needle.

The great Christian thinker, C.S. Lewis writes, in Mere Christianity, that pride is the "anti-God" state, the position in which the ego and the self are directly opposed to God: "Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind." Pride is understood to sever the soul from God, as well as His life-and-grace-giving Presence. (from Wikipedia “The Seven Deadly Sins” see Hubris.)

Other examples of Jesus teaching humility are:
- “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”
- “Address the mote in your own eye before the beam in another’s”
- “Blessed are the meek”
- “Blessed are the poor in spirit”
- “Blessed are the pure in heart”

Humility is the prime cardinal virtue. It describes that state of the ego as softened and pliable like water. In this state it has transparency and the ability to allow other things to pass through it; things like light and heavenliness. It is the truly religious throughout the centuries who have cultivated this state.

Beauty has the power to soften and sometimes overwhelm the ego giving rise to powerful experiences of Oneness.

The Seven Deadly Sins are correctives to egoism.

In Milton’s Paradise Lost, Lucifer becomes the fallen angel on account of his pride. Pride severs his relationship with the divine order and precipitates his fall from grace. The egoic and non-egoic are on a see-saw, the more one is up the more the other is down.

Conversely, in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice we experience the uplift afforded by the overcoming of pride by love.

Which brings me to Muhammad. I don’t know what happened to Muhammad in his early days as a religious teacher but during the later Medinan period he is clearly aligned with the ego, the anti-God state.

Islam became an entirely egotistical religion, almost a religion of the ego and the will, and it was overseen by an egotistical God of arbitrary will, summed up by the ubiquitous boast of “Allahu Akbar” – our god is greater.

Muhammad’s intense pride can be seen in his inability to bear the criticisms and mockery of his detractors. He therefore had them assassinated.

He identified the goals of his own will with the directives of divine will. Divinity in his mind was almighty and arbitrary, a supreme ego akin to his own. The Islam of Muhammad is a massive ego trip.

Whereas Jesus illuminates the world by reflecting the light of divinity, Muhammad darkens it with his nefarious, egotistical will.

That Muhammad divided the world into those who accepted his prophetic status and those who did not was evidence enough of his falsehood. The attribute of Divinity is Oneness not Twoness.

The Deadly Sins of the Ego are: Pride, Gluttony, Avarice, Sloth, Envy, Anger, Lust.

Muhammad appealed to his followers in terms that would satisfy their egos and the deadly sins. The promise of worldly wealth and grandeur; the promise of sex slaves to satisfy their lust; the opportunity to get the better of those who were more successful; the promise of an afterlife modelled entirely upon the appetites of the ego: virgins, wine, unlimited sensual pleasures.

He raved about the torments that would be suffered by those who failed to accept him and continually encouraged his followers to gloat on them, indeed one of the great pleasures of the afterlife would be to see them suffer. This is egoism pure and simple.

He taught that “those who believe” should hate everyone else: Divisive not unifying.

I believe you will search the Koran in vain for a scrap of spiritual guidance. This is because, for all its bloated pretensions, it is a book of the ego not one of divinity.

One of the greatest teachings of Jesus was to guard against self-righteousness. Islam gives its followers much of the appearance of spirituality. Slavish devotion, obsessive rituals, fasting, prayer, modesty of dress, external cleanliness, but the inner fruits of its doctrines are pride and contempt for others. This is a wholly unspiritual outcome.

With the doctrine of voluntarism, Islam has even developed a metaphysics of egoism. According to this metaphysics, no event occurs in the universe that is not specifically willed by Allah. Allah is not subject to any constraint such as the laws of Nature, to suggest so is to suggest his absolute will is not absolutely powerful. "Inshallah" is the appeal to Allah's supreme egoism.

Because it has no spiritual truth it has to resort to force and coercion. Devoid of truth it deploys the ultimate fallacy – the argument of the stick (argumentum ad baculum).

The Koran is not one of the world’s documents of the spiritual life. It is rather a testament to the egoism of one man – Muhammad.

Muhammad, whose ego was so lustful he married a girl of six and found a “divine” reason (a “revelation”) saying that he should have his cousin’s wife, Zainab.

This is not the behaviour of a spiritual guide but of a wholly unspiritual egoist. Muslims should be told this in no uncertain terms whilst they have time to rectify their lives in accordance with better principles.

I think the fundamental idea behind the Islamic project is to create a sacred space that is unassailable; logically, a world dominated by Islam would be unassailable. The only snag is it wouldn’t be sacred. Islam as it is now constituted is a massive ego-trip. Ego-trips aren’t sacred.

Islam has burst through the centuries building exponentially upon the first ejaculation of Muhammad’s rapacious ego. That is really all it is; an elaborate extension of his ego.

Islam now stands face to face with a decadent de-Christianized West. Our politically correct culture has descended into a farce of ego protection wherein certain groups of people are protected from the beneficial pain of corrective truth – a dismal fact that ensures our descent into ever greater pretense and untruth.

There is a grain of goodness in political correctness in so far as those who are politically correct are often trying to protect those they see as weaker than themselves. We should guard against the pride that can grow from being better educated, better qualified, better mannered, or better financed than others but the game of PC has become an absurd circus of protecting the egos of others from harsh truths. We know truth when we hear it; when know it when we see it (though we’ll often turn away quickly). It has an undeniable resonance. Those people would be far better off left unprotected that they might feel the force of truth to diminish their egos. They would then, less full of pride, be beacons of truth themselves.

The Christian preoccupation with not straying into egoism has an echo in the orientation of the cultural left. The left is always referring us back to our own cultural failings when we point out the failings of other cultures. Political correctness is to some degree a corrective against cultural egoism; likewise the constant reiteration of tu quoque arguments: “what about the Crusades”, “what about the slave trade”, ”what about colonialism” etc.

Where there might have been an element of nobility in this tendency it is also a great falsifier. Truth must prevail. Ignoring the faults of others whilst constantly inflating our own may feel like a kind and noble thing to do but it has the awful effect of falsifying reality and energizing the egoism of people whose culture already renders them proud and contemptuous of others.

And yes, there is much to be said for concentrating on putting our own house in order. However, we cannot do that if some egotistical savage has destroyed the house.

One of the easiest forms of pride to fall into is in-group supremacy. Here again, the Left is frequently urging a corrective but it becomes overly negative towards the in-group and overly flattering towards out-groups. When this flattery is directed towards those of a supremacist culture it makes their cultural egotism even more bloated.

Western hedonism may be little better in terms of educating us away from the ego but it does have the merit of leaving individuals at liberty and not inducing intolerant expressions of piety - although the new piety of political correctness is a strong contender. The culture of the West has also allowed the possibility for cultural self-criticism to exist. This is a direct product of the non-egoic teachings of Jesus. Christianity, being a true expression of divinity, puts us on guard with respect to our ego, both the individual and the collective form.

The question is now whether we can regain enough awareness of what we are really about to return to non-hedonistic, non-egoic terms of existence and prevent a worldwide slide into the abyss of Islamic egotistical totalitarianism.

A Verse

Muhammad was an egoist and therefore not divine,

His influence for centuries has never been benign.

Sam Harris provides an Antidote to Cognitive-Egocentrism

Reading from the latest edition of the ISIS magazine Dabiq, Sam Harris takes us with chilling lucidity into the mind and worldview of the jihadist.

Are you constantly exasperated by people's inability to step outside their 21st century Western worldview and put themselves into the mind of a devout Muslim? Do you wish politicians and media would stop talking about "alienation" and "poverty" and "lack of opportunity" because these are largely irrelevant to our understanding of the devout Mohammedans and their motives and aspirations? 

These are all aspects of cognitive ego-centrism - the inability to step outside our own worldview in order to put ourselves into the worldview of another, especially when that other has a very different worldview to our own. 

What is it like to adopt a perspective on life (and death) which is essentially medieval, but nonetheless real for that?

Listen to this 42 minute podcast by Sam Harris in which he asks his listeners to stop imposing their worldview onto the jihadists and accept what they say about themselves to be true and truly felt.

Sam Harris: What do jihadists really want?

Observations on the narrative narrative

Observations following on from Sam Harris's idea of the narrative narrative.

Whence comes this notion that focusing our attention on the specific threat that is originating from Islam will drive more Muslims into the camp of the jihadists?

The Left have developed a conceptual environment in which things are generally held to be equivalent or equal; a culturally relativistic environment; an environment in which to discriminate in a cognitive sense (that is to use discernment or judgment) is equivalent to discriminating in an affective, persecutory sense.

The power of discerning between these two senses of discrimination has been vitiated by anti-discriminatory political correctness (the conceptual environment that seeks to "equivalize" all things); to discriminate is to err.

This is a conceptual environment in which discrimination is the root of all ills, including the ill of Muslim violence. In the politically correct mind this violence will be traceable to some form of discrimination. Therefore any discrimination, including the discrimination of attending to one thing over another, will fuel Muslim violence and polarization.

Just thinking aloud...

Sam Harris explains the "narrative narrative"

The ever-lucid Sam Harris recorded a very interesting interview with David Gregory in which he sought, among other things, to explain what he has come to refer to as the "narrative narrative".
This narrative is something we hear increasingly from politicians of the left and centre, less so from the true right.

I have transcribed Sam's words from the soundcloud recording which you can access here. The section I've transcribed starts at around the 40 minute mark.

Sam Harris: the narrative narrative.

In fighting ISIS or resisting the spread of Islamic theocracy more generally, we must at all costs avoid "confirming the narrative" of Islamic extremists. So the fear is that any focus on the religion of Islam or its adherents, like profiling at the TSA or intelligence gathering at mosques or merely acknowledging that we are not at war with generic terrorism but Islamic terrorism in particular; the fear is that this will drive many more Muslims into the arms of the jihadists; they'll become jihadists because of this.

But now think about what's actually being alleged here; think about the underlying horror and paranoia of this claim: let's say (this isn't a perfect analogy but it should work) you're a bald white man, right, and unhappily for you there just happens to be a global insurgency of neo-Nazi skinheads that's just terrorising a hundred countries, right; most white men are of course perfectly peaceful but this insurgency has grown so widespread and so captivating to a minority of white men that no city on earth is safe.

Bald white men have blown up planes and buses and burned embassies and even murdered innocent children by the hundreds, point blank; and we have now spent trillions of dollars trying to contain this damage; and many of these white men are seeking nuclear materials so they can detonate dirty bombs and even atomic ones, and to make matters worse many of them are validly suicidal and therefore undeterrable. 

Now imagine what it would be like to hear presidents and prime ministers and newspaper columnists and even your own fellow white bald men expressing the fear that merely acknowledging the whiteness and baldness of neo-Nazi skinheads would so oppress and alienate other white bald men that they too would begin murdering innocent people; OK, imagine being told that at all costs we can't confirm the narrative of neo-Nazis by acknowledging that white bald men festooned with swastikas pose a greater security interest than elderly Hawaiian women, for instance, or that any kind of focus on people who look like this could be so offensive that it will lead other white bald men to act out in this completely insane way.

Now this is either the most pessimistic and uncharitable thing ever said about a community, in the case of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims, or it's true. 

OK, now, if it's the former, if it's just pure paranoia to be saying this then we should stop saying it, right; but if it's the latter, right, if it's actually a legitimate fear that calling a spade a spade here will drive some terrifying number of otherwise ordinary Muslims into the arms of theocrats, so these people will then be "radicalized", they'll be calling for clitoridectomies for their daughters, or they'll be supporting people who throw gays from rooftops, well then we should be talking about nothing else; we should be obliging Muslims to talk about nothing else.

This is the most bizarre, uncanny fact about our world at this moment, if true. 

Daniel Greenfield takes on the narrative nonsense here.

Muslims Are Victims

Yes, Muslims are victims. They are victims of Islam and they threaten to make the rest of us victims, either as converts...

...or corpses.

What is a bigot?

Another of the common accusations thrown at opponents of Islamisation is that they are bigots. With its usual smugness, the Left is now apt to call a bigot anyone with opinions that they dislike. But if you look at the real meaning of the word it has more to do with the way that opinions are held and one's attitude towards opinions different to one's own.

Let's start by looking at dictionary definitions of the word bigot:

Using the dictionaries that I have available in my home and looking at online sources I have found the following definitions of bigot:

1. [Oxford Illustrated Dictionary, pub. 1962] - one who holds irrespective of reason, and attaches disproportionate weight to, some creed or view.
2. [Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, pub. 1966] :
   • hypocritical or superstitious professor of religion circa 1600-1700
   • obstinate adherent of a creed or opinion 1700 onwards
3. [The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, pub. 1973]
   • circa 1598, a hypocrite
   • to 1664, a superstitious person
   • 1661 onwards, a person obstinately and unreasonably wedded to a creed, opinion, or ritual
   • Bigoted: Obstinately or blindly attached to some creed, opinion, or party, and intolerant towards others
4. Current online dictionaries:
   • A ​person who has ​strong, ​unreasonable ​beliefs and who does not like other ​people who have different ​beliefs or a different way of ​life. [Dictionary.Cambridge.org]
   • A person who is intolerant towards those holding different opinions [OxfordDictionaries.com]
   • A prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from his own - [Vocabulary.com]
   • A prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from his own - [TheFreeDictionary.com]

The Left seems to be in the process of shifting the definition of "bigot" so that it means anyone unsympathetic to the Left's agenda, that is so say someone who seeks to avoid societal suicide. So anyone with conservative opinions who seeks to preserve their way of life is now classed as a bigot. In particular, anyone determined to protect their society and way of life from the predatory advances of Islam is a bigot. Thus counter-jihadists are portrayed by the Left as bigots.

But when we look at what is really going on today I think the Left's definition of bigot cannot withstand scrutiny. On the contrary, it seems to be the Left itself that most successfully fits the historical meanings of the word. Ex-Muslim Sarah Haider describes them as "benevolent bigots".

Meaning #1: hypcrite. A hypocrite is someone who does not practice what they claim to believe in.

Those on the Left like to see themselves as the champions of human rights, equality, social justice, peace, and that nebulous, undefined good known as "diversity".  The Left fails to live up to these claims because they surrender to the demands of Islam whenever it conflicts with their ideals. They capitulate to Islamic norms with respect to women thereby allowing gender apartheid; they are ready to accommodate Sharia courts and other instruments of Islamic control thereby enshrining all the inequalities of the Sharia in our societies; they fail to protect the peace by allowing the growth of jihadist elements and the almost unavoidable prospect of civil wars within western societies.

Even the stupid notion of diversity will eventually come unstuck as Islam transforms societies into closer and closer approximations of Islamic State.

The Left tests positive on definition #1.

Meaning #2: Obstinacy of opinion or unreasonable adherence to a belief

Since 9/11 many of us have taken the trouble to put our cultural assumptions to one side and try to understand the nature of Islam in its own terms. We have learned about the Koran and read it in whole or in part; we have learned about the central importance of Mohammed and his life; we have learned that his example is a key component in the development of Sharia law and that his moral example offers some appalling examples of deception, betrayal, enslavement, conquest, the murder of non-violent opponents such as poets, marriage to a child of six, sex with a child of nine, genocide, banditry, and that Islam's prime imperative (derived from Mohammed) is the subjugation of all to the belief that Mohammed is the last messenger of God and all should submit to the laws derived from his teaching and personal example.

In order to do this we have had to counter a natural tendency within all of us to cling to opinions and existing beliefs. We have a had to constantly revise our worldview in the light of what we found and had to come to terms with the painful recognition that Islam is a wholly different and aggressive worldview which is in direct and permanent conflict with our civilization. We have not sought this information because we like it but have had to come to terms with its existence in spite of the dread it inspires in us.

The Left, on the contrary, has remained obstinately wedded to its pre-existing worldview that all cultures are harmless and colorful additions to the fabric of our societies; that Muslims are not inspired and committed in varying degrees to a creed that is divisive and discriminatory; that we can coexist with any number of Muslims and preserve a tolerant, open, and rational society based on the principles of human rights.

They have stubbornly resisted the evidence that this is not a reasonable view in light of what we know about Islamic doctrines, Mohammed's character, the history of Islamic culture hitherto, and the practice of Islam today as shown in the 57 Muslim countries of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

They have stubbornly resisted the evidence of 27,670 terrorist attacks carried out in the name of Islam since 9/11.

They have stubbornly resisted the evidence of Christian persecution that anyone genuinely concerned for human rights would be interested to know.

They have stubbornly resisted the evidence of creeping Sharia and stealth jihad in one Western society after another - the same pattern, the same process, the same outcomes.

Instead of undertaking any revision of their opinions informed by reason and evidence they have clung to childish slogans and beliefs.

The Left tests positive on definition #2.

Meaning #3: Intolerance of beliefs or opinions different to one's own

The Left have demonstrated time and time again just how intolerant they are of opinions that differ from their own. Today's university campuses, dominated as they are by left-wing thought, have become places where conservative opinions can seriously impede one's career.

The current "safe spaces" fiasco on university campuses is another manifestation of this intolerance of contrary opinion. Students are demanding places where they can feel safe from the threat of opinions they dislike.

Another university phenomenon that has been gradually normalized by the Left is the "no platform" to speakers they disapprove of. Even a secular ex-Muslim such as Maryam Namazie has been barred from speaking at Warwick University in the UK.

Time and again the Left demonstrates its hostility to "free speech" when others refuse to intone the acceptable leftist platitudes. They also shut down the voices of others by labeling as "hate speech" the speech that they hate.

The Left tests positive on definition #3.

As you can see, it's not even a question of the pot calling the kettle black when the Left accuses the counter-jihad of bigotry. It's more like demons tearing at the flesh of innocents. They test positive on each meaning of bigotry outlined above and should be addressing it.

As a start they might consider taking seriously their avowed commitment to human rights and acknowledge the threat that Islam poses to these. They might study the Koran and the life of Mohammed and the theological doctrines derived from them and revise their worldview accordingly. They could also try allowing people to voice their concerns about the most intolerant religion on earth instead of shouting "bigot!" at all who take truth seriously and go by the evidence.

And, contrary to what the Left may like to believe, someone holding opinions that the Left does not like cannot for this reason alone be defined as a bigot. In today's context, those on the Left show far more of the attributes of bigots.

What makes opposition to Islam far-right?

We often hear the label "far-right" applied to those groups and individuals who oppose the Islamisation of their societies. The mainstream media does this all the time. But how justified is this? The term elicits images of storm-troopers, Hitler, huge gatherings at Nuremberg, persecution of Jews, Mussolini, South American dictators etc. The far-right label is an effective means of frightening many of those concerned about Islamisation from being more involved in the counter-jihad.

The characteristics of far-right thinking are reasonably easy to ascertain:

1. Authoritarianism. The view that people should do as they are told by those in authority over them. The state and its institutions can tell people what to do and they are not allowed to protest their decisions.
2. Traditional roles for women. Women should bear children and mind the home; they should be married and avoid involvement with the workplace. Their role is to support and please their husband.
3. Hostility to out-groups. The far-right have a strong sense of in-group solidarity based on group values and norms; they revile and despise outsiders.
4. The out-group most despised by the far-right is probably the Jews. Hatred towards Jews and persecution of them are key attributes of the far-right.
5. Jews may be the out-group most despised but any minority, as an out-group, is subject to hatred and persecution.
6. The far-right has low tolerance both for those outside the in-group and for those less conforming inside the in-group. High conformity is rewarded, low conformity is punished.
7. Homosexuality and other forms of non-conformity attract intolerance and violence from the far-right.
8. Imposing authority through violence. Perhaps the hallmark of far-right behavior is the belief that imposing their views through violence is fully justified - "the only way to get things done". 

Are counter-jihadists wishing to bring about social changes that fit this description? Absolutely not. They are actually trying to prevent social changes that fit this description. They are people who are acutely aware of the "far-right" nature of Islam and wish to combat it.

For every point above Islam tests positive:

1. It is highly authoritarian. Sharia law is derived from scripture and the model of Mohammed. It is unchangeable and impossible to protest against decisions made as this would invoke a charge of blasphemy or apostasy, both equally fatal. The rules of society are rigid and total obedience to them is expected. Deviance is punished in a draconian manner. The rules cannot even be subjected to change via democratic consensus.
2. Islam gives women second class status. The testimony of a woman in law is worth half of a man's; her religiosity is inferior to a man's and her role is to be married and obey and please her husband in all matters. There are many other ways in which Islam degrades women and makes them vulnerable.
3. Islam is intensely hostile to out-groups. It is predicated on the division between believers and non-believers and holds as a central article of faith that non-believers are inferior and should be attacked until they submit to Islam's authoritarian order.
4. Islam is intensely hostile to Jews. Mohammed expressed his hostility to Jews and killed many himself. He oversaw the slaying of the Jewish tribe the Banu Qurayza in which 800 men were beheaded in the market place of Medina in March 627. Their wives, daughters and prepubescent boys were sold into slavery. This event is not a source of shame within Islam but one of celebration and triumph.
5. Islam is hostile to any out-group. This is because Islam bisects the world in such a binary manner - believers/non-believers, House of Islam/House of War. Witness the persecution of Buddhists, Ba'hais, Jews, Yazidis, Zoroastrians, Animists, Christians, etc, etc throughout its 1400 year history.
6. Islam has extremely low tolerance for any deviance from its authoritarian system. We see this in Muslim majority countries and increasingly in non-Muslim countries with Muslim minorities. The tail has an impressive ability to wag the dog in these latter societies because Muslims express their intolerance in violent and intimidating ways. Even with populations between 5% and 10% Muslim, non-Muslim countries are under increasing pressure to bend to the demands of Islamic intolerance.
7. Muslims, following the teachings of Islam and the example of Mohammed, are very intolerant of homosexuality and other forms of non-conformity. In fact, the degree of conformity and the detail in which it is specified within Islam is so great that there is little that can escape the notice of vigilant and pious Muslims.
8. Islamic doctrine is replete with justifications for using violence against unbelievers in the pursuit of Islam's prime directive - to enforce the adoption of Islamic belief worldwide.

How then can opposing social change which tends towards this authoritarianism be justifiably called "far-right"? It is patently ridiculous.

The real "far-right" is sometimes hostile to Muslims because they are generally hostile to out-groups. But the real far-right is actually sympathetic to Islam because they approve of its Jew-hatred. 

The far-left has also joined this chorus of Islam-praisers because they have adopted a Jew-hatred of their own. Seduced by Palestinianism and convinced that tiny Israel is an imperialistic, colonising state that oppresses what it likes to call the Palestinians and unable to see any fault in the sworn enemies of Israel and the Jewish people, they now march in lockstep with Muslims and the real far-right but at different times. Having abused rationality and language for so long in politically motivated campaigns of "solidarity" with genocidal Muslims they can no longer discriminate between "far-right" and real far-right.

The mainstream needs to understand that Islam is a far-right doctrine, as can be seen from the list of far-right characteristics above, and that those who oppose it because of this cannot be "far-right".

Searching for alternatives to "extremism"

Following on from my last post on the Islamic authenticity of so-called "extremism", I thought I would try and explore the subject a bit further in the light of material that has come to my attention over the past week and try and formulate a succinct and alternative way of referring to Islamic extremism/radicalism since it is this so-called extremism which is actually the real deal.

The fact that "extremism" and its counterpart the "countering violent extremism" (CVE) narrative are misleading and, for non-Muslims, self-defeating terms has been pointed out recently by Stephen Coughlin who was formerly an intelligence analyst for the Pentagon.

As he details in this video, the CVE narrative has been carefully crafted in line with Muslim Brotherhood affiliates and serves to lead counter-terror operatives off the trail and into a thicket of misunderstandings and dead-ends whilst simultaneously turning the spotlight of "counter extremism operations" on the so-called "far-right" which encompasses just about anyone concerned enough about the conquest of the world by Islam to stick their head above the parapet of political correctness.

In this interview with Jamie Glazov, we see the CVE narrative doing its nefarious work as pious leftist Tamara Holder scolds Bridget Gabriel and other freedom fighters as "the most dangerous people" because they "spew hate". You cannot oppose the most ruthless ideology on earth without earning the label "dangerous extremist". Further into the video Tamara Holder again fights in the way of Allah by vilifying Jamie Glazov as "disgusting". As Jamie reflects after the clip from Hannity, being deeply concerned about the victims of jihad and Islamic gender apartheid makes him disgusting in the eyes of this leftist harpy.

Then there is this question: how normal are the attitudes and behaviors in the Muslim world that are labelled extremism in the free world? When we say normal we mean occurring very frequently among a population.

Nonie Darwish answers that question in this article. In it she reveals that hostility to non-Muslims; the aspiration to so-called martyrdom (in its bastardized Islamic form); celebration of jihadists; rewarding of jihadist families are all common and no cause for shame or concern, quite the reverse.

So while people in the free world are scratching their heads about how people become radicalized, as they call it, the Muslim world is celebrating the behavior that non-Muslims innocently assume they deplore. The Muslim culture provides an environment where it is miraculous that anyone is not radicalized.

The observations made by Nonie Darwish are corroborated by the findings of many surveys undertaken by Pew Research. In the chart showing support among Muslims for making Sharia the law of the land, those countries in the Islamic heartlands show very high support for the proposal.

So, in the Islamic heartlands what western policymakers like to think of as extremism is simply normal. And, as Islamic populations in the free world grow we become more and more aware of how normal extremism is among them too.

This is entirely explicable as the result of the severity and ruthlessness of Islamic principles. Those most devoted and committed to Islam are the most dangerous; the notion that jihadists are in any way deviating from Islam is a howler of a fallacy. No Muslims embody the religion of Islam more fully, more completely than they do.

We have seen this reported time after time in the development of jihadists. This article by Paul Sperry looks at the frequency with which Muslims who end up killing non-Muslims in the cause of their faith progress along the exact same path of greater and greater religiosity until they are fully committed to Islam and ready to kill and die in the way of Allah. For this to happen by chance is absolutely impossible and anyone with a reasonable knowledge of Islamic doctrine, Islamic history and Islamic culture will be able to understand exactly why it is so predictable.

All this really must lead to a review of the word "extremism" in this context. It doesn't make sense and it is very misleading. But what are the alternatives?

The degree of Islamization of an individual can be modeled in the same way as the Islamization of a whole society - or the whole world.

At the individual level the preoccupation with and commitment to Islam becomes a larger and larger proportion of the self until the self and devotion to Islam are identical. This is the point of full submission and total obedience to Islam.

Similarly, at the societal level, the proportion of Muslims in the society grows as does the degree of observance of the individual Muslims in that proportion; the non-Muslim portion is displaced just as the remnants of unbelief are displaced within the Islamizing individual.

A simple model for this process is concentric circles where the outer ring is the Islamized self and the inner part is the yet-to-be-Islamized self. This outer ring spreads inwards until the totality and core of the self is engulfed. This represents the totally committed Muslim.

Stage 1 - the outer ring of Islamic belief surrounds the self:

Stage 2 - the ring of Islamic belief becomes a greater  part of the self:

Stage 3 - Islamic belief dominates the whole self:

The self is 100% Muslim. The individual self has been eclipsed by belief.

At the societal level it might be better represented in reverse as a minority becomes the majority:

Stage 1 - the Muslim population is a small proportion:

Stage 2 - the Muslim population is growing:

Stage 3 - the Muslim population dominates the whole society:

The society is 100% Muslim.

So my question is what word or phrase can describe this 100%-ness? I'm only interested in the individual level. The following are suggestions but I'm far from happy with any of them:

• complete Muslim
• fully Muslim
• totally Muslim
• fully committed
• fully Islamized
• slavish
• totally obedient
• thoroughgoing
• fully-fledged
• fully extinguished person
• fully depersonalized Muslim
• de-individuated
• fully compliant
• full-blown (nice pun!)
• orthodox
• I think this is a strong candidate but may lead to some sense of commonality with the orthodox Christians and orthodox Jews. 
• authentic
• true Muslim
• mainstream
• authentic Mohammedan
• this focuses people's attention on the fundamental problem - Muhammad
• it points to a person not an abstract theological concept
• it uses the concept of authenticity which is a positive word
• it points to the fact that the most ruthless Muslims are emulating Muhammad's own ruthlessness
• it points us away from the thicket of abstractions to the behavior of people
• jihadists are faithful copies of Muhammad - authentic Mohammedans
• true Mohammedan might be crisper

Something crisp, perceptive and catchy is required.

Stupid Hans in Action

As the Germans lead the way in welcoming thousands of Muslims into Europe, bringing their religious disease with them, I thought it an appropriate occasion to resurrect a post I wrote a couple of years ago entitled "Liberal Hans".

It's based on the Grimm Fairy Tale called "Stupid Hans" which is a clever illustration of how one doesn't get to do the right thing by simply doing what you should have done the last time you made a mistake. Having made such a colossal mess during the Nazi era by killing millions and creating a refugee crisis on an unprecedented scale the Germans have apparently decided that this time they should be nice to the refugees instead of creating them in the first place.

This folly is blind to nature of the "refugees" and the beliefs they bring with them. What would have made moral sense during the Nazi era does not make sense with respect to thousands (and soon to be millions) of Muslims who hold beliefs that put them perpetually at loggerheads with their hosts.

Germany is playing Stupid Hans, literally. Here is the original post.

Failure To Discriminate

How the Left came to fight for the most reactionary force on earth

During the last 80 years in Western societies a huge amount of effort has gone into reducing discrimination on the basis of class, sex, race, disability, etc. Huge swathes of legislation now cover the offence of discrimination. If you find yourself facing an accusation of discrimination you know you are in big trouble. Not only may you end up in jail or with the prospect of a large fine but you’ll find it hard to find a job and face social ostracism.

Opinion regarding discrimination more generally has become highly sensitized. What has become known as ‘political correctness’ includes a policing of language and attitudes in line with the objectives of reducing discrimination. Concern with discrimination is ubiquitous. It is the primary focus of political correctness. We are all familiar with people making themselves ridiculous as they tip-toe around certain topics in an elaborate dance of euphemisms and self-correction.

During the last thirty years the employees of public and private bodies have been subjected to “diversity training” in order to bring them closer into line with anti-discrimination policies. Opinion on these matters has ceased to be a matter of private concern; if you have the wrong attitudes you are deemed to be in need of correction. Even if you keep your opinions to yourself, that is still not good enough. Diversity, the parameters of which are never clearly defined, is presented as an unalloyed good and couched in terms such as “vibrant”, “colorful”, and “cosmopolitan”.

This whole collective effort defines the progressive agenda: keep expanding the sphere of anti-discrimination and thereby achieve equality and justice. And one of the important commandments is “Thou shalt not discriminate”. Non-discrimination in our relations with each other is a powerful, pervasive and over-arching theme. Those who have escaped its influence are seen as boorish and uneducated – as yet “unreached”.

I don’t want to go into the merits of this but I do want to have a look at how it may have affected our ability to think coherently.

I have been trying to understand for a few years now just how it is that Western societies have been able to remain so blind to the threat that confronts them. This blog is an on-going effort to unravel this mystery: what are the typical thought processes in the Western mind which render it so needlessly stupid?

During my conversation with a Socialist Workers Party activist recently I experienced something of an epiphany. I saw how reluctant he was to discriminate but this reluctance even extended to the point of not wishing to make purely cognitive distinctions – the very foundation of sound judgement. My initial post on this encounter is here but since then I have seen even more implications of what he was saying.

I put the point to him that in order to assess whether or not a religious group represented more of a threat than another we needed to look at the characteristics of each religious group, their religious beliefs and the record of behavior consistent with those beliefs. His reply was very revealing: he said that to do that would be discriminating and discrimination leads to events like the Holocaust.

This set me thinking about the different forms of discrimination and what the consequences might be of not discriminating in any sense of the word as this activist appeared to suggest. I think it may help us understand the peculiar paralysis of judgement that many people experience in relation to Islam.

The Meaning of Discrimination

Oxford Dictionary definition for discriminate:

1. intransitive verb. (often followed by between) make or see a distinction; differentiate (cannot discriminate between right and wrong).  2. intransitive verb. Make a distinction, esp. unjustly and on the basis of race, color, or  sex. 3. intransitive verb. (followed by against) select for unfavorable treatment. 4. transitive verb. (usually followed by from) make or see or constitute a difference in or between (many things discriminate one person from another). 5. intransitive verb. Observe distinctions carefully; have good judgement. 6. transitive verb. Mark as distinctive; be a distinguishing feature of.

Oxford Dictionary definition for discrimination:

1. unfavorable treatment based on prejudice, esp. regarding race, color, or sex. 2. good taste or judgement in artistic matters etc. 3.  the power of discriminating or observing differences. 4. a distinction made with the mind or in action.

There are then two key senses of the word: (1) to make necessary or informed distinctions, and (2) to treat unequally on the basis of (1).

Could it be that the cultural effort to combat discrimination in sense (2) has compromised the ability to discriminate in sense (1)?

Is this SWP activist and others like him failing (refusing even) to discriminate between the two senses?

Are many of us now in a position where we fear to make a distinction, observe a difference, or even focus on one group to the (temporary) exclusion of others in case it is a precursor to discrimination in sense (2)?

My central concern is the West’s relationship with Islam. I think there are definite failures of discrimination in relation to Islam in sense (1) which are sometimes motivated by the desire to avoid discrimination in sense (2). 

Failure to discriminate between race and religion

There is a common tendency for the lazy-minded of all political persuasions to accuse (or suspect) those opposed to Islam of racism. This is a category error since Islam is not a race and opposition to it cannot therefore be racism. This error arises from a failure to discriminate between the two categories of race and religion.

This error is internalized by the Left; they actually believe it. This means that as far as they are concerned for them to be opposed to Islam is for them to be guilty of racism. They are trapped inside their own fatuous error.

This may possibly be linked to the false assumption that all Muslims are colored and any opposition to them is actually about their color. Opposition to Islam is seen as a mask for racism. The Left loves to talk in terms of hidden agendas such as this. They also have a holier-than-thou attitude and the accusation of racism is a common method of attempting to demonize those they disagree with.

There is often a correlation between Islam and race in local circumstances. In non-Muslim countries such as the UK, Muslims are usually (but not always) Pakistani/Bangladeshi. To say that non-Muslims are usually white is also true, but much less so since there are significant numbers of non-Muslims who are not white (e.g. Sikhs, Hindus, and many other faith groups as well as non-religious people).

So, Muslims and Asian racial characteristics are concomitants to a very great extent in many places. In particular localities these may well serve as an indicator of likely beliefs. However, it is the beliefs which are opposed rather than the race of the individuals who hold them. In any case, the beliefs held are far more clearly indicated by dress codes, behavior and speech patterns than by racial characteristics. People are generally far more alarmed by noxious customs than by racial features.

Failure to discriminate between Muslims and their beliefs

It is their Islamic beliefs which define people as Muslims but first and foremost they are people. They can be distinguished from their beliefs. They could live without them. In fact there is every sign that they would lead far better lives (both morally and materially) if they did.

People have rights; beliefs don’t. Do people have a right to believe what they want? -  - not an unlimited right. This right is limited by the need to hear what other people think of your beliefs. People don’t have a right to have their beliefs insulated from questioning, criticism or ridicule.

To attack a person’s beliefs is not the same as attacking the person (however closely they identify with their beliefs). If their beliefs are harmful to them and potentially harmful to us, attacking their beliefs is a duty. In the case of Islam, if we make no attempt to attack the beliefs now, those same beliefs will cause us to be attacked in the future as well as leading to many gross injustices against both Muslims and non-Muslims.

Failure to discriminate between a true minority and a purely local one

An example of a true religious minority would be the Sabeans (followers of John the Baptist) of the Middle East. They are very limited in number globally and are small minorities in their home countries (e.g. Syria).

Muslims are never a minority in this sense because they have such a large international presence and considerable power through such bodies as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. They may look like a small David within the national context but there is always the international Goliath standing just behind them. Just look at the billions spent on mosques, academic chairs, and lobby groups in Europe over the last 10 years alone.

Failure to discriminate between the characteristics of one ethnic group and another

There are obviously differences between Jews and Muslims. They have different religious beliefs for a start. This means they have different perspectives on the world. Upon these different perspectives different habits of mind have developed. As the poet John Dryden said, “First we make our habits, then our habits make us.” Repeated patterns of behavior mould our characters along well-worn paths. These patterns differ to some extent across different cultures because of their different worldviews and the expectations of behavior grounded in them.

I work amongst Pakistani Muslims and I see definite dominance/submission patterns of behavior in them. Islam is a dominance/submission religion and the culture born of it is oriented around this theme – Islam means “submission” and you have to submit to something or someone which is by definition “dominant”. It could not be otherwise. This is the kind of thing I mean by culturally influenced patterns of behavior.

From what I have seen, Jews are more culturally differentiated. Many notable figures of all political, artistic, and literary perspectives are Jewish. Many key innovators are and have been Jewish and the creative arts are awash with Jewish high achievers. I get the sense of a remarkable people and culture. Even in the teeth of centuries of persecution their genius has been irrepressible.

I appreciate this is highly subjective but there are patterns of behavior which are distinctive to a culture. They highlight cultural differences. Jewish culture is organised around historical/spiritual/communal themes as opposed to dominance/submission. There is more room for the individual.

Some clearer differences between Jewish and Islamic culture:

• Jews have been persecuted by Muslims ever since the days of Muhammad
• Muhammad made a virtue of persecuting Jews
• Jewish culture has no concept of jihad; Islam is defined by it
• Judaism has never conquered and enslaved huge swathes of the world; Islam has
• Judaism has no doctrine of world domination; Islam has

There are important differences between religions and the cultures born of them. Refusal to discriminate means blinding oneself to them.

Failure to discriminate between the group and the individuals in the group

The ardent non-discriminators treat Muslims and the Muslim Community as a single entity. There is an assumption that Muslims belong in this community and that it’s spokesmen can (and should) speak for them.

For the Left, Equality is a core value and equality of treatment is the main way of realizing it.

However, equality of treatment is applied inappropriately at the group level. The Muslim Community is taken to be a unified entity which can be treated as a whole. Due to the insistence on treating all aspects of the issue indiscriminately, the Left ends up taking a “hands off” attitude to all things Islamic. The Muslim Community is taken to be united in their aspirations and to afford the group equality of treatment is seen to be giving equality of treatment to all members of the group.

There are a number of problems with this. Firstly, within the group there are norms of institutionalized inequality. One example is the unequal testimony of men and women under Sharia law, with a woman’s testimony counting for only half that of a man. Even worse is the position of non-Muslims under Sharia, with the testimony of a non-Muslim counting for nothing against a Muslim.

Sharia is integral to Islam and the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights spells out very clearly that universal human rights are not compatible with it.

Protecting the group as a whole protects these inequalities. Equality of treatment should only be applied to individuals and where group norms conflict with equality of treatment they should be challenged. Thus by affording all cultures the mantle of equal protection, the Left actually increases the sum total of inequality for individuals.

Secondly, this approach leaves questions about the Muslim Community’s attitude towards outsiders totally unexamined and off-limits. To investigate is to discriminate. But what if they do have an agenda which is hostile to the goals of equality (e.g. the Dhimma Pact) – how are we to know? Given that institutionalized inequality is integral to Islamic culture and that non-Muslims are considered inferior people it is a matter of some urgency to assess the extent and intensity of these beliefs.

The incurious Left tends to believe the comforting falsehood that non-Muslims are given special protection under Sharia. It is all made to sound as if they are cherished and cared for but nothing could be further from the truth. In actual fact they are only protected from the predations of Islam itself as long as they observe the conditions of their subjugation. Once any of these conditions is broken by anyone the whole non-Muslim community is fair game for attack.

People with real concern for others want to prevent this but the Left is too busy demonizing them as bigots to realize that.

Failure to discriminate between the different meanings of discrimination

As the dictionary makes clear, ‘discriminate’ can mean to make a distinction, to see a difference. This forms the basis of sound judgement.

Anti-discriminators like the SWP activist appear to see this type of discrimination blurring into the other form. As far as they can see, the first meaning has exactly the same consequences as the second. This, together with the other failures to discriminate discussed above, leads to the fear of the Slippery Slope. 

At FallacyFiles.org the Slippery Slope argument is described this way:

This type [of argument] is based upon the claim that a controversial type of action will lead inevitably to some admittedly bad type of action. It is the slide from A to Z via the intermediate steps B through Y that is the "slope", and the smallness of each step that makes it "slippery".

This type of argument is by no means invariably fallacious, but the strength of the argument is inversely proportional to the number of steps between A and Z, and directly proportional to the causal strength of the connections between adjacent steps. If there are many intervening steps, and the causal connections between them are weak, or even unknown, then the resulting argument will be very weak, if not downright fallacious.

For the anti-discriminators, trying to make any assessment of the characteristics or threat presented by Islam is to discriminate and that is step A on the the slippery slope towards persecution. As they see it, it constitutes a form of discrimination in sense (2), to treat unfairly. But there is no inevitable connection between such an assessment and the awful consequences they fear. In fact, if we don’t make this assessment and plan accordingly we could well be the victims of persecution ourselves, just as thousands of non-Muslims in Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, Syria, Iraq etc are suffering persecution at the hands of Muslims today – all in accordance with Sharia. Do we not have a right and a duty to prevent this outcome ?

In the last analysis, we can't treat everything equally because differences of character require differences of treatment. You cannot treat a lion the same way that you treat a lamb.

The other failures of discrimination described above compound the fear of the Slippery Slope:

• Because they fail to discriminate between race and religion they see racist bigotry at work.

• Because they fail to discriminate between the beliefs and the people and the individual and the group and religion and race, they lump them altogether so that criticism or examination of the beliefs is viewed as a direct attack on the people because of their race.

• Because they fail to discriminate between a real minority and a purely local one, they see Muslims as far more vulnerable than they are.

• Because they fail to discriminate between the characteristics of one religious group and another , they draw false parallels between the plight of Muslims today and the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany.

These failures cluster together to form a very misleading view of reality and a failure of judgement results. People are easily panicked into making these errors by the threat of accusations like “Islamophobia”.

By far the biggest cost to the anti-discriminators is that paid in the coin of ignorance. They deny themselves the possibility of knowing by refusing to look. I explore this in a different light in Refusing Galileo's Telescope. This leads them to accuse those who know far more about Islam than they do of being ignorant.

One highly visible result of their ignorance and confusion is that we find them standing on the front lines fighting on behalf of Islam – the most reactionary force on earth. I really do think that this anti-discriminatory attitude is one of the most important features of the cultural malaise that I have called Malsi-Tung. It is a by-product of the anti-discrimination agenda described above.

Perhaps the question to ask these anti-discriminators is this: given that you refuse to look at the distinct characteristics of Islam because you see this as discrimination, how are you ever to know if it is in fact a threat?

“A threat to what?”, I hear them saying.

“A threat to universal human rights and  equality of treatment for all people, things which you claim to support and which Islam is demonstrably against. Islam sanctifies discrimination on a grand scale, but you're only likely to know that if you are discriminating.”