The Reporting of Information of Events associated with Islam

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Hugh Fitzgerald: You Don’t Have To Be Muslim To Love Ramadan

June 8, 2016 3:48 pm By Hugh Fitzgerald 74 Comments


Why is it that Western politicians, including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and David Cameron, think they must send out messages of such heartfelt solidarity to the world’s Muslims on Ramadan? Of course they send out messages as well for Diwali (Hindus and Buddhists), Passover (Jews), Christmas and Easter (Christians), but not with the suggestion that this or that religious holiday is somehow meant to include all of us as well-wishers, when some of us only wish to be counted out, or – equally disturbing – to sing the praises of a religious observance that is insufficiently understood.
Why does Ramadan appear to get special treatment? And why do these politicians presume to speak for us, as when Hillary Clinton sends a brief message that starts “As we begin Ramadan,” with that “we” implicating non-Muslims in what is, after all, a religious observance for Muslims only. That “we” is properly a “they.” Why did she not write, more accurately because less inclusively: “As Ramadan begins, I wish all Muslims….”or “As Ramadan begins for Muslims, I wish them…,” thus being polite, but no longer implying that “we” all share in Ramadan?
David Cameron offered an especially treacly and “inclusive” Ramadan greeting this year, and the very first sentence of his message to Muslims everywhere insists on implicating all of us in what should only be their epithet:

It’s the holy month of Ramadan…​

Why did Cameron have to say that Ramadan is “holy” to non-Muslims? Why could he not have said “It’s Ramadan, that month holy to Muslims,” or “It’s the month of Ramadan, holy to Muslims”?

– a time when mosques open their doors, community centers welcome in their neighbors, and even churches and synagogues offer up their spaces as Muslims break their fasts – and people of all faiths and none are often asked to join.” (But these open-to-all iftars are not just for simple breaking-bread fellowship, but occasions for propagandizing, or even proselytizing, for Islam, as those who have attended these affairs well know.)​

Coventry Cathedral is holding its own multi-faith iftar. In Manchester, they’re combining an iftar with England’s European Championships appearance. And homeless shelters up and down the country are holding ‘Iftars with the Homeless’.​

Of course, fasting is what comes to mind when we think of Ramadan.​

Not all Muslims agree; what comes to mind for some of them, when they think of Ramadan, is that it’s the perfect time to conduct Jihad: “The month of Ramadan in the life of the Prophet (pbuh) and the righteous ancestors was a month of forthcoming. The greatest battles during the lifetime of the Prophet (pbuh) occurred in this blessed month, the month of jihad, zeal, and enthusiasm.” For more on Ramadan as the month of Jihad, see here.

It’s part of the month that really puts Muslims’ faith to the test, especially during these long, warm days. But there is much more to it. There is all the energy and money people donate to those who are less fortunate, and all the extra time spent in prayer and contemplation.​

Cameron ought to know, but may not, that Muslim charity is directed only toward fellow Muslims; he ought to have said “all the energy and money Muslims devote to less fortunate fellow Muslims” — which changes the sense considerably.

Uppermost in all our minds…​

“All our minds”? Are we all Muslims now?

…this Ramadan are those whose lives have been torn apart by the twin evils of Assad and Daesh,…​

Are these equivalent evils — the Alawite aligned with Shi’a Muslim Iran and hereditary despot, Assad, and the Sunni Muslim fanatics of Daesh (the Islamic State)? Or are the latter far more dangerous to non-Muslims than the former?

…all those families spending this holy month…​

The epithet is again imposed on non-Muslims for whom Ramadan is not “holy.” Why?

…in refugee camps, mourning loved ones, yearning to go back to school or to work…​

News of the scandal of the “Syrian refugees,” so many of whom are not from Syria, but assorted Muslims from as far away as Pakistan and Afghanistan, many of them seeking “refuge” in those European countries offering the most generous benefits, where they need not trouble themselves to seek work, has apparently not reached 10 Downing Street. Just consider the demonstration of the Muslim migrants’ “yearning for work” in Sweden where, last year, out of 162,000 “refugees” who arrived, exactly 464 are now employed. Some yearning.

…wondering whether they’ll ever return home again.​

And how many of those Muslim “refugees” have given any sign, over the last decade, of wanting to return home from Europe?

Our thoughts, whatever our backgrounds or beliefs, are with them.​

Again Cameron presumes to speak for all of us: “Our thoughts.” Notice, too, the casual feelgood dismissal of differences – “whatever our backgrounds or beliefs” — which no Muslim would endorse.

And we must continue to support the people of Syria and the region, as we work towards a lasting political solution. Because that’s who we are as a country. We won’t walk on by again.​

So this Ramadan, let’s renew our resolve to help those victims. Let’s continue to come together for iftars and community events. Let’s celebrate the proud, multi-racial, multi-faith democracy we live in.​

Cameron attributes to Ramadan a significance for non-Muslims that it does not as yet possess: it’s because it’s Ramadan that, he suggests, we renew, we continue, we celebrate. That is, all of us, in first-person-plural harmony. He might have written more to the real point: “Both Muslims and non-Muslims should renew their resolve to fight fanaticism and to ensure that minorities everywhere are safe.” Not a sentiment to which Muslims could openly object, even if they know to whom – themselves — it is really being addressed. And the distinction between Muslim and non-Muslim is usefully maintained.

To everyone in Britain and around the world, Ramadan Mubarak.​

Ramadan Mubarak “to everyone,” not just Muslims? Are we all Muslims now? And greetings not only in Britain but “around the world”? Why not at least limit greetings, if greetings there must be: “To Muslims in Britain, Ramadan Mubarak”?
Muslims would not have taken kindly to having Cameron presume to speak for them by having them appear to share in his Christmas or Easter or Passover or Diwali greetings, and he has been careful not to do so. Muslims are taught not to acknowledge the religious observances of others. But he does presume to speak for all non-Muslims in his specious sharing of the observance of Ramadan.
As for his “proud, multi-racial, multi-faith democracy,” this is a pollyannish figment of Cameron’s imaginative multicultural boosterism. Not everyone in Britain has forgotten the Muslim terrorist attacks on the buses and Underground, the butchering of Fusilier Rigby, and the sex-grooming gangs up and down the land, all contributing to a justified and growing anxiety over the Muslim presence in the country.
Barack Obama has issued his own equally fulsome Ramadan greetings:

For many…​

Should this not be “For many Muslims…”?

…this month is an opportunity to focus on reflection and spiritual growth, forgiveness, patience and resilience, compassion for those less fortunate, and unity across communities.​

To repeat yet again: “compassion” — i.e., charity — “for those less fortunate” is, in Islam, limited to fellow Muslims; Muslims are not supposed to give alms (zakat) to non-Muslims. This is often overlooked, because many non-Muslims are unaware of it, and even if they do know about the rules for Muslim “charity,” it seems churlish for non-Muslims to mention them (“Muslims are supposed to aid only other Muslims”), and Obama does nothing to set things straight. He might, however, simply have omitted that misleading phrase about “compassion for those less fortunate,” or he might have praised Muslims for “making a special effort during Ramadan to support less fortunate members of their own community,” which is less stark than “Muslims offering support for less fortunate Muslims.”
As for Ramadan being the perfect time to “focus on…unity across communities,” Obama presumably means a “unity” of Muslims with other faith groups. But Muslims are taught to regard themselves as the “best of peoples,” and non-Muslims as the “vilest of creatures” for whom all manner of punishments await. What “unity” could there possibly be between the “best of peoples” and the “vilest of creatures”?

Obama also remarks on the history of Muslims in America: “There are those whose heritage can be traced back to the very beginning of our nation, as well as those who have only just arrived.” This fits in with incessant Muslim attempts at backdating their presence in America, to insert themselves into the historical narrative much earlier, as a means of legitimizing their presence, and then pushing that “Islam has always been part of America” nonsense. This campaign reached its absurd zenith when State’s Phyllis McIntosh issued a report in 2004 entitled “Islamic Influence Runs Deep in American Culture.” In this report, she found a non-existent Muslim in Columbus’s crew: “Islamic influences may date back to the very beginning of American history. It is likely that Christopher Columbus, who discovered America in 1492, charted his way across the Atlantic Ocean with the help of an Arab navigator” (flatly untrue). “May date back” and “It is likely that” are weasel words designed to protect from criticism a claim that is made up entirely out of whole cloth. Then there is the other dubious claim — made with very slight supporting evidence — that, among the African slaves brought to America were some who had been Muslims in Africa. But even were that to have been true, a handful of Muslim slaves, living in an overwhelmingly Christian environment, outside a Muslim community, without either mosques or the texts necessary to help perpetuate the faith, would have had their Islam extinguished by the next generation.

In fact, a scarcely discernible, and very tiny, Muslim presence came very late to America. The first community of Muslims to have founded a mosque in the United States did so in a building borrowed for that purpose, in 1929; the first building erected as a mosque dates to 1935. Obama ought to have left out claims that Muslims arrived “at the very beginning of our nation,” rather than transmit what is a staple of Muslim propaganda. Or he might have written, with studied vagueness: “While many American Muslims have only just arrived, others can trace their heritage to earlier periods of our history.”

Then there is Obama’s parting remark about wishing “to honor the contributions of Muslims in America and across the world.” I have no idea what impressive contributions he has in mind, but along with others “in America and across the world,” I await with bated breath President Obama’s detailed list of Muslim Achievers.

To sum up:
Despite their extravagant expressions of solidarity with, and admiration for, Muslims on the occasion of Ramadan, nowhere in their remarks do either Cameron or Obama demonstrate real understanding of Islam. They should be – are they? — aware that Muslims are forbidden to reciprocate, that is, to offer similar greetings to non-Muslims on the occasion of any non-Muslim religious holiday – e.g., Christmas, Easter, Passover, Diwali. Some Muslims become incensed even at the non-religious observances of non-Muslims; campaigns by clerics to convince Muslims not to participate in such innocuous holidays as Valentine’s Day, or Thanksgiving, are not unknown. That being the case, there should be even less felt need or sense of obligation for non-Muslims to offer up such fulsome praise for this Muslim religious observance; a few sentences would have been quite enough.
In their choice of words, both Cameron and Obama make it appear that Muslim charity is extended to non-Muslims, but the only sanctioned object of Muslim alms-giving (zakat), during Ramadan (as at all other times), is fellow Muslims. And neither one explains why, during this month which – Obama informs us – “is an opportunity to focus on reflection and spiritual growth, forgiveness, patience and resilience,” Muslim violence does not recede, but surges.

One hopes that other commentators — freer to speak the truth than do our leaders, or those “taking a leadership role” — will continue to correct the record, dialing back on this insensate Infidel enthusiasm for Ramadan, both silly and sinister, before it becomes “not just for Muslims anymore.”

Tel Aviv: Mall jihadis were disguised as Orthodox Jews, murdered at least 3
Migrants burn down asylum center for not getting Ramadan breakfast wake-up call

 

Happy Islam Melodies for Children's Education!


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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-secret-history-of-isis/



https://player.vimeo.com/video/163573849​

 

Objective Truth versus Ideology as empowered relative Opinion






Amy Mek ‏@AmyMek 4h4 hours ago
ISLAM Muslim Children Parade The Heads Of Their Victims, While A Crowd Of Muslim Adults Praise Them #CaliphateCubspic.twitter.com/8C2Nr2aNVM


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UN chief removed Saudi Arabia from blacklist of human rights abusers after Saudis threatened to cut UN funding

June 10, 2016 10:14 am By Robert Spencer 37 Comments
A clear admission that the UN is thoroughly compromised and sold out to interests that are at clear variance with its (long forgotten) stated mission. If we had an administration in Washington that cared about American interests, the US, not the Saudis, would be cutting funding for the UN.
Also: what else have the Saudis bought? A full revelation of their paid-for lackeys among the American political media elites would be eye-opening, but is unlikely to be forthcoming.


“U.N. Chief Says He Went Soft on Saudi Arabia and Allies to Avoid Aid Cut,” by Colum Lynch, Foreign Policy, June 9, 2016 (thanks to John):

Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary-general, confirmed Thursday he was essentially blackmailed into removing the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen from a U.N. blacklist of countries, rebel movements, and terrorist groups that have killed, maimed, or otherwise abused children in conflict.
The move follows Foreign Policy’s exclusive report Tuesday that Saudi Arabia privately threatened to break relations with the United Nations and cut hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian and counterterrorism funds if it was not taken off the list. In response to the threat, Ban agreed Monday to remove Saudi Arabia and its allies from the blacklist, pending a joint review of the matter by the U.N. and representatives of the Saudi-led coalition.

The decision sparked sharp criticism from human rights advocates, who accused the U.N. chief of capitulating to pressure.
But Ban hit back publicly on Thursday, telling reporters he continues to stand by the report’s finding that the Saudi-led coalition is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Yemeni children. Though he didn’t single out Saudi Arabia by name, Ban told reporters in a prepared statement that unnamed countries threatened to cut off financial support for vital U.N. programs if Saudi Arabia and its allies were not removed from the list.
U.N. officials said Ban received calls of protest from senior officials from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and other close Saudi allies who demanded the stigma be lifted.
Privately, U.N.-based officials said senior Saudi representatives, including Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, threatened to cut funding to such vital programs as those for displaced Palestinians and destitute Yemenis. They also said Riyadh raised the specter that other Arab nations, principally the oil-rich Persian Gulf states, would also follow suit, risking billions of dollars in humanitarian aid commitments….

Yet again: Muslims hack to death Hindu monastery worker in Bangladesh
France: Muslim staff at Paris airport sanctioned for having Qur'an in lockers and refusing to trim beards

 

Saturday, 11 June 2016

Documentary on violent Islam cancelled because Muslims will react violently

This is the trailer for the finished documentary "Watching the Moon at Night", funded by Swedish state TV.
It's a documentary. It's factual. Because it tells the truth about Muslims it's axiomatic that Muslims will be offended by it.
So it now won't be shown on Swedish TV.
Here's Breitbart.

Jihad Documentary Cancelled For Fear Of Offending Muslims
Truth doesn’t matter. Defending freedom doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is avoiding offending Muslims. Sweden (and the rest of the West) seems determined to avoid offending Muslims all the way to total Islamic conquest and subjugation.

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Swedish state-run TV won’t air a new documentary about anti-Semitism and jihad in case it offends the ever growing Muslim population in Sweden.

“Watching the Moon at Night” is a new documentary largely funded by Swedish state broadcaster SVT and tries to tackle the looming questions of anti-Semitism among Muslims and its links to terrorism.
Though the television channel has largely funded the creation of the documentary they are now refusing to air it on Swedish television because critics say they fear a potential backlash from Muslims and the politically correct establishment, reports Danish national paper Berlingske.

Created by acclaimed Swedish film makers Joanna Helander and Bo Persson, “Watching the Moon at Night” has so far seen limited theatrical release in six countries, including numerous film festivals.
It has been described as a film that takes a long, hard and serious look at the methodology and origins of anti-Semitism and terrorism. The documentary proves that there is a link between terrorism and anti-Semitism and that Jews have often found themselves at the mercy of Islamic terrorists as was the case in Paris and Copenhagen.

The move to not show the film is usual for SVT, who almost always broadcast projects that they have financed. SVT declined to purchase the rights to show the film in Sweden, followed by two Swedish film festivals who also opted to drop the production.
Marianne Ahrne, former film consultant at the Swedish Film Institute who initially green-lit public funding for the documentary, stated that the production met with trouble from the very start. She claims that the funding was approved and then made subject to conditions saying that SVT put in “one formal obstacle after another”.

Director Bo Persson confirmed the claims of Ms. Ahrne, stating that it was the SVT project manager Lars Säfström in particular who was making obscure demands in order to secure the funding.
Mr. Persson said that Mr. Säfström wanted the documentary to be more anti-American and anti-Israeli saying: “He tried to influence the film’s content,” and that “for us it was totally unacceptable that he should interfere in the content”.

Axel Arnö, head of SVT’s documentary department, fired back at accusations made by the pair claiming that the documentary was dropped because it didn’t fit in with their standards saying that the production was more of an essay than a piece of serious journalism meaning it was attempting to prove a point rather than document reality.

Several critics in the Swedish media blasted the comments from Ms. Arnö and SVT accusing them of bowing to political correctness. Erik Helmerson from the newspaper Dagens Nyheter wrote:
“Islamophobia is feared more than showing that terrorism is committed in the name of Islam. Therefore, I think that a film like ‘Watching the Moon at Night’ creates nervousness and unrest.”

SVT has been the subject of accusations of progressive left wing bias before after a handbook was leaked showing how journalists in the company are supposed to act to fit a progressive narrative.
The handbook encourages journalists to avoid words like “immigrants” and call migrants “people on the run”. One SVT journalist took the narrative so far that he was arrestedfor smuggling a migrant into Sweden earlier this year.

http://pamelageller.com/2016/06/swe...ml/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

ACLU lawyers blame ‘Christian right,’ GOP for Orlando jihad massacre

June 12, 2016 4:20 pm By Robert Spencer 78 Comments
“You know what is gross — your thoughts and prayers and Islamophobia after you created this anti-queer climate,” ACLU staff attorney Chase Strangio tweeted on Sunday morning. Does the illustrious Strangio actually believe that Omar Mateen was incited to commit mass murder in the gay nightclub in Orlando by an “anti-queer climate” created by Christian conservatives? He probably does, since, as a Leftist, he knows that non-Muslims are always and everywhere to blame for atrocities that Muslims commit.



“ACLU lawyers blame ‘Christian right,’ GOP for Orlando terrorist attack,” by Joel Gehrke, Washington Examiner, June 12, 2016:
Christian conservatives are responsible for the mass shooting at a gay bar in Orlando because they “created this anti-queer climate,” according to American Civil Liberties Union attorneys.
“You know what is gross — your thoughts and prayers and Islamophobia after you created this anti-queer climate,” ACLU staff attorney Chase Strangio tweeted on Sunday morning.
About 50 people were killed last night by Omar Mateen, a U.S. citizen born to Afghan parents suspected to have “leanings toward extreme Islamic ideologies.” The FBI is investigating the attack as a “domestic terror incident.”

But Strangio — who “spend[s his] life fighting Christian homophobia while being loved & supported by [his] Muslim family” — and his colleagues connected the shooting back to Christians and Republican politicians who oppose gay marriage. “The Christian Right has introduced 200 anti-LGBT bills in the last six months and people blaming Islam for this,” Strangio tweeted. “No.”
Subscribe today to get intelligence and analysis on defense and national security issues in your Inbox each weekday morning from veteran journalists Jamie McIntyre and Jacqueline Klimas.
Another ACLU attorney who specializes in religious liberty issues scolded Republican lawmakers who tweeted out their condolences. “Remember when you co-sponsored extreme, anti-LGBT First Amendment Defense Act?” the ACLU’s Eunice Rho tweeted at Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and other Republicans,
House Speaker Paul Ryan was careful not to jump to conclusions about the attacker on Sunday morning. “We pray for those brutally attacked in Orlando,” Ryan tweeted. “While we must learn more about the attacker, the victims & families will not be forgotten.”…

Trump: Obama should resign, Hillary withdraw over refusal to say "Radical Islam"
Facebook removes SIOA page; Reddit bans users who say Orlando jihadi was Muslim

Facebook removes SIOA page; Reddit bans users who say Orlando jihadi was Muslim

June 12, 2016 3:53 pm By Robert Spencer 48 Comments
UPDATE: Now Facebook has banned Pamela Geller from posting for thirty days. The social media giant seems intent on silencing any criticism of jihad terror.
———-
Sharia censorship in the wake of jihad slaughter. Like government and law enforcement officials, Reddit and Facebook seem to think that their first priority in the wake of every jihad attack is to make sure people don’t think ill of Islam.
Pamela Geller has more on the removal of the SIOA page here.



“Reddit Bans Users, Deletes Comments That Say Orlando Terrorist Was Muslim,” by Christian Datoc, Daily Caller, June 12, 2016:

Reddit moderators are actively banning users posting articles discussing Orlando nightclub terrorist Omar Mateen’s religion.
User “moonsprite” shared a screenshot of an article he posted titled, “Orlando shooting suspect may have ‘leanings’ to Islamic extremism,” to the r/news subreddit.




ACLU lawyers blame 'Christian right,' GOP for Orlando jihad massacre
Video: Robert Spencer on why Ramadan is full of jihad terror

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The Sexual Misery of the Arab World

Lire en français (Read in French) | اقرأ المقال بالعربية (Read in Arabic)
Contributing Op-Ed Writer
By KAMEL DAOUD FEB. 12, 2016

Photo


Credit Eiko Ojala

ORAN, Algeria — AFTER Tahrir came Cologne. After the square came sex. The Arab revolutions of 2011 aroused enthusiasm at first, but passions have since waned. Those movements have come to look imperfect, even ugly: For one thing, they have failed to touch ideas, culture, religion or social norms, especially the norms relating to sex. Revolution doesn’t mean modernity.
The attacks on Western women by Arab migrants in Cologne, Germany, on New Year’s Eve evoked the harassment of women in Tahrir Square itself during the heady days of the Egyptian revolution. The reminder has led people in the West to realize that one of the great miseries plaguing much of the so-called Arab world, and the Muslim world more generally, is its sick relationship with women. In some places, women are veiled, stoned and killed; at a minimum, they are blamed for sowing disorder in the ideal society. In response, some European countries have taken to producing guides of good conduct to refugees and migrants.

Sex is a complex taboo, arising, in places like Algeria, Tunisia, Syria or Yemen, out of the ambient conservatism’s patriarchal culture, the Islamists’ new, rigorist codes and the discreet puritanism of the region’s various socialisms. That makes a good combination for obstructing desire or guilt-tripping and marginalizing those who feel any. And it’s a far cry from the delicious licentiousness of the writings of the Muslim golden age, like Sheikh Nafzawi’s “The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight,” which tackled eroticism and the Kama Sutra without any hang-ups.
Today sex is a great paradox in many countries of the Arab world: One acts as though it doesn’t exist, and yet it determines everything that’s unspoken. Denied, it weighs on the mind by its very concealment. Although women are veiled, they are at the center of our connections, exchanges and concerns.

Women are a recurrent theme in daily discourse, because the stakes they personify — for manliness, honor, family values — are great. In some countries, they are allowed access to the public sphere only if they renounce their bodies: To let them go uncovered would be to uncover the desire that the Islamist, the conservative and the idle youth feel and want to deny. Women are seen as a source of destabilization — short skirts trigger earthquakes, some say — and are respected only when defined by a property relationship, as the wife of X or the daughter of Y.
These contradictions create unbearable tensions. Desire has no outlet, no outcome; the couple is no longer a space of intimacy, but a concern of the whole group. The sexual misery that results can descend into absurdity and hysteria. Here, too, one hopes to experience love, but the mechanisms of love — encounters, seduction, flirting — are prevented: Women are watched, we obsess over their virginity, the morality police patrols. Some even pay surgeons to repair broken hymens.

In some of Allah’s lands, the war on women and on couples has the air of an inquisition. During the summer in Algeria, brigades of Salafists and local youths worked up by the speeches of radical imams and Islamist TV preachers go out to monitor female bodies, especially those of women bathers at the beach. The police hound couples, even married ones, in public spaces. Gardens are off-limits to strolling lovers. Benches are sawed in half to prevent people from sitting close together.

One result is that people fantasize about the trappings of another world: either the West, with its display of immodesty and lust, or the Muslim paradise and its virgins.
It’s a choice perfectly illustrated by the offerings of the Arab media. Theologians are all the rage on television and so are the Lebanese singers and dancers of “Silicone Valley,” who peddle the promise of their unattainable bodies and impossible sex. Clothing is also given to extremes: At one end is the burqa, the orthodox full-body covering; at the other is the hijab moutabaraj (“the veil that reveals”), which combines a head scarf with slim-fit jeans or tight pants. On the beach, the burqini confronts the bikini.
Sex therapists are few in the Muslim world, and their advice is rarely heeded. So Islamists have a de facto monopoly on talk about the body, sex and love. With the Internet and religious TV shows, some of their speeches have taken monstrous forms, devolving into a kind of porno-Islamism. Religious authorities have issued grotesque fatwas: Making love naked is prohibited; women may not touch bananas; a man can be alone with a female colleague only if she is his milk-mother, and she has nursed him.

Sex is everywhere.
Especially after death.
Orgasms are acceptable only after marriage — and subject to religious diktats that extinguish desire — or after death. Paradise and its virgins are a pet topic of preachers, who present these otherworldly delights as rewards to those who dwell in the lands of sexual misery. Dreaming about such prospects, suicide bombers surrender to a terrifying, surrealistic logic: The path to orgasm runs through death, not love.

The West has long found comfort in exoticism, which exonerates differences. Orientalism has a way of normalizing cultural variations and of excusing any abuses: Scheherazade, the harem and belly dancing exempted some Westerners from considering the plight of Muslim women. But today, with the latest influx of migrants from the Middle East and Africa, the pathological relationship that some Arab countries have with women is bursting onto the scene in Europe.
What long seemed like the foreign spectacles of faraway places now feels like a clash of cultures playing out on the West’s very soil. Differences once defused by distance and a sense of superiority have become an imminent threat. People in the West are discovering, with anxiety and fear, that sex in the Muslim world is sick, and that the disease is spreading to their own lands.
Kamel Daoud, a columnist for Quotidien d’Oran, is the author of the novel “The Meursault Investigation” and a contributing opinion writer. This essay was translated by John Cullen from the French.

Lire en français (Read in French)

 

I'm a Gay Activist, and After Orlando, I Have Switched My Vote to Trump

By Anonymous June 12, 2016
chat 1083 comments


This is the saddest day of my life. I can't even wrap my mind around the horror of what happened last night in Orlando, where 50 joyful dancing queers were murdered by a religious extremist. I'm sad -- devastated, in my soul -- about that; but I'm also sad that the events of Orlando have shattered my political beliefs, as I can no longer swear allegiance to a peace-love-and-unicorns progressive philosophy that only helps to get my fellow queers killed.

Yes, there is a war between religious fundamentalism and the spirit of love and tolerance. But we progressives here in America still labor under the delusion that the religion we need to combat is Christianity. But that's a strawman opponent, and has been so for decades. Since the 1990s, Christian extremists have essentially lost all their power, and are now toothless nonplayers in the "culture wars." Meanwhile, Muslim extremists, with guns, murder us, and on the left our only response is to bleat about "Islamophobia" and jump through hoops trying to explain away the self-evident religious motivation for the killings.


Oh sure, all year I've been playing the "Bernie or Hillary?" game with all the other default-Democrats in my social and professional circles. But this is no longer some kind of game. Our lives are on the line. Although I voted for Hillary in the primary, I now cringe inwardly with shame and embarrassment at having done so, and in November I will vote for Trump.
Why? Yes, I know that Trump is an a**hole, Trump is a clown, Trump is a motormouth buffoon. You don't have to convince me of that. But he's also the only person saying anything about putting the brakes on Islamic extremism, and in light of what happened last night in Orlando, suddenly that is the only issue that really matters when it comes to the health, well-being and safety of the queer community.


As an aside, Trump has never said anything homophobic, and has always gotten along well with the gay community in New York, so there's that in his favor as well.


I also now realize, with brutal clarity, that in the progressive hierarchy of identity groups, Muslims are above gays. Every pundit and politician -- and that includes President Obama and Hillary Clinton and half the talking heads on TV -- who today have said "We don't know what the shooter's motivation could possibly be!" have revealed to me their true priorities: appeasing Muslims is more important than defending the lives of gay people. Every progressive who runs interference for Islamic murderers is complicit in those murders, and I can no longer be a part of that team.

I'm just sick of it. Sick of the hypocrisy. Sick of the pandering. Sick of the deception.

And you know what makes me angrier still? The fact that I have to hide my identity and remain anonymous in writing this essay. If I outed myself as a Trump supporter, I would be harassed and doxxed and shunned by everyone I know and by the Twitter lynch mobs which up until yesterday I myself led.


I am ashamed. I am angry. And I am sad. I don't want to vote for Trump, but I must. And if you care about the safety of the gay community in America, so must you.


https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/06/12/gay-activist-after-orlando-trump-voter/?singlepage=true

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