In a poll taken after the Gaza disengagement by Norwegian NGO Fafo, 65% of Palestinians strongly supported Al Qaeda terror attacks in the US and Europe. (
And nearly 80% want their fledgling new state (funded by the same countries they’d like to see attacked) to institute the Dark Ages code of shari’a law.
A poll carried out in the Palestinian Authority shows 65% support for Al Qaeda terror attacks on the United States and European countries - the biggest donors to the PA. The poll comes at a time when US and European funding of the Palestinian Authority is at an all-time high.
With elections due to be held next month and the Hamas terror group gaining significantly in municipal elections and polls, the survey further illustrates the desire of a majority of PA Arabs to establish an Islamic state, similar to Iran. A whopping 79.9% of Palestinians would like the PA to follow Shari’a - Islamic religious law. Included in the figure are 11.3% of the respondents, who would like to see Shari’a supplemented by the laws of a PA Legislature.
“What is striking is the willingness of Palestinians to turn against even the Western countries upon whom they are so totally dependent in order to progress,” said Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) Director Itamar Marcus. “The poll underscores what PMW has been documenting for years - the profoundly negative impact hate education has had on PA society ... Palestinians are not in direct conflict with the US, and certainly have counted on the Europeans as active allies. And yet an overwhelming majority desire to see Europeans and Americans killed by a religion-based terror organization.”
Muslims love the idea of imposing sharia
Western Muslims' Racist Rape Spree
By Sharon Lapkin
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 27, 2005
In Australia, Norway, Sweden and other Western nations, there is a distinct race-based crime in motion being ignored by the diversity police: Islamic men are raping Western women for ethnic reasons. We know this because the rapists have openly declared their sectarian motivations.
When a number of teenage Australian girls were subjected to hours of sexual degradation during a spate of gang rapes in Sydney that occurred between 1998 and 2002, the perpetrators of these assaults framed their rationale in ethnic terms. The young victims were informed that they were “sluts” and “Aussie pigs” while they were being hunted down and abused.
In Australia's New South Wales Supreme Court in December 2005, a visiting Pakistani rapist testified that his victims had no right to say no, because they were not wearing a headscarf.
And earlier this year Australians were outraged when Lebanese Sheik Faiz Mohammed gave a lecture in Sydney where he informed his audience that rape victims had no one to blame but themselves. Women, he said, who wore skimpy clothing, invited men to rape them.
A few months earlier, in Copenhagen, Islamic mufti and scholar, Shahid Mehdi created uproar when – like his peer in Australia – he stated that women who did not wear a headscarf were asking to be raped.
And with haunting synchronicity in 2004, the London Telegraph reported that visiting Egyptian scholar Sheik Yusaf al-Qaradawi claimed female rape victims should be punished if they were dressed immodestly when they were raped. He added, “For her to be absolved from guilt, a raped woman must have shown good conduct.”
In Norway and Sweden, journalist Fjordman warns of a rape epidemic. Police Inspector Gunnar Larsen stated that the steady increase of rape-cases and the link to ethnicity are clear, unmistakable trends. Two out of three persecutions for rape in Oslo are immigrants with a non-Western background and 80 percent of the victims are Norwegian women.
In Sweden, according to translator for Jihad Watch, Ali Dashti, “Gang rapes, usually involving Muslim immigrant males and native Swedish girls, have become commonplace.” A few weeks ago she said, “Five Kurds brutally raped a 13-year-old Swedish girl.”
In France, Samira Bellil broke her silence – after enduring years of repeated gang rapes in one of the Muslim populated public housing projects – and wrote a book, In the hell of the tournantes, that shocked France. Describing how gang rape is rampant in the banlieues, she explained to Time that, “any neighborhood girl who smokes, uses makeup or wears attractive clothes is a whore.”
Unfortunately, Western women are not the only victims in this epidemic. In Indonesia, in 1998, human rights groups documented the testimony of over 100 Chinese women who were gang raped during the riots that preceded the fall of President Suharto. Many of them were told: “You must be raped, because you are Chinese and non-Muslim.”
Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported that in April 2005, a 9-year-old Pakistani girl was raped, beaten with a cricket bat, hanged upside down from the ceiling, had spoonfuls of chillies poured into her mouth, and repeatedly bashed while handcuffed. Her Muslim neighbours told her they were taking revenge for the American bombing of Iraqi children and informed her they were doing it because she was an “infidel and a Christian.”
In Sudan – where Arab Muslims slaughter black Muslim and Christian Sudanese in an ongoing genocide – former Sudanese slave and now a human rights’ activist Simon Deng says he witnessed girls and women being raped and that the Arab regime of Khartoum sends its soldiers to the field to rape and murder. In other reports, women who are captured by government forces are asked; “Are you Christian or Muslim?” and those who answer Christian, are gang raped before having their breasts cut off.
Read it all...
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20646
Merry Christmas infidels!
To all those who hold this holiday special - for religious or secular reasons - may I wish everyone a Merry Christmas!
About Flanstein
A young muslim asked me a question on another blog about myself and my motivation. Here is the question and my best attempt at a coherent answer...
". . .im asking not out of disrespect, but just because i want to know. why do you spend so much time writing mean and hateful things on Muslim blogs? what do you hope to accomplish? what is your personal experience with "Islam" that makes you so angry at Muslims specificaly? do you practice a particular relgion or spiritual system? where do you believe you will go when you die? please let me know. can you give me a direct honest answer please? these are just questions, not a challenge. my intentions are pure
i also would also like to know how you feel about black and latino people in general"
My values and standards are based on freedom - from and of - religion. Whether you're a Mormon or a Scientologist makes no difference to me - as long as you don't want to convert or kill me of course. I am an agnostic and when I die, I expect to go to the place from whence I came – nothingness. I am not angry at muslims – I am angry at islam for turning this flawed and imperfect world into a darker, less secure and more violent place.
I think it’s important that muslims know how many of us feel towards their religion. Islam, as Muslims love to point out to us, is not really a religion but 'a whole way of life' from the state apparatus down to the individual defecating at home. Islam as a 'whole way of life', as a political, social and economic ideology has proven time and again that it is an utter failure, producing corrupt dictatorial regimes, grinding poverty, illiteracy and intellectual backwardness, misogyny, hatred of the Other, debilitating fatalism, dysfunctional individuals, institutionalized hypocrisy and nihilistic terrorists. THIS is Islam.
Up until 9/11, I was essentially ignorant about islam, aside from knowing it was one of the monotheistic religions, I had some peripheral understanding about customs (I knew not to offer to shake the hand of devout muslim women, nor to offer muslims alcohol or pork during social occasions) aside from this pathetic spoonful of knowledge - that was about it. I assumed that muslims were essentially like me, interested in building their family, career and nation. It wasn’t until I started reading about islam did I find out the frightening truth.
It is not an act of hatred against Muslims to point out the depredations of jihad ideology. I believe in the equality of rights and dignity of all people, and that is why I oppose the global jihad. I simply hold up to the light the appalling things muslims say and do about non-muslims and the equally appalling things that are written in the Koran and hadiths that muslims quote as they kill innocent people. That you find the facts of your religion to be “mean and hateful” speaks volumes about it – not me.
"i also would also like to know how you feel about black and latino people in general"
Since I come from a mixed race family myself, I feel the same about black and latino people as I do about everyone else – why?
Finally, Flanstein is obviously not my real name. It has been my experience that muslims kill infidels who dare question their "religion", hence my hesitation for offering anything more about myself than absolutely necessary.
‘Tis the season to be Muslim
Ever wondered how much muslims loathed our society and everything we stand for? Wonder no longer - the warriors from the ROP are quite exercised about Christmas over at the jihadi site called the islamic network. Notice how they compare the holidays to having sex with young boys...
http://www.islamicnetwork.com/index.php
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
A couple of statements that I read recently have somewhat irked me. We had a Muslim leader suggesting that those who say Muslims take exception to Christmas decorations in the workplace are wrong. Then a more extreme view was advocated by a Muslim columnist in a national newspaper; she explained how this Christmas she’d be buying a tree, giving presents and serving halāl turkey in her home. So amidst all these voices declaring how much they don’t mind Christmas can I just point out that - I do? In fact if there ever were a day of the year that was in dire need of sabotaging then it’d have to be Christmas in my book.
How many times in the latter part of December do we get wished “Merry Christmas”? Simply put, too many! And the really irritating bit about it all is that it’s often said as a matter of routine and with little sincerity. So when you make the effort to point out that you don’t celebrate Christmas because you’re Muslim it can be met with “Look mate, I said Happy Christmas but I don’t really mean it, it’s just a phrase. You don’t have to give me your life story.”
Those that actually hang around for the explanation normally ask in shock “You mean you don’t give children presents?” Which contains a subtext of “Woe to you, oh child-torturer!”
“It’s a family festival, why don’t you just do it for the children’s sake?” Listen, I am doing it for the children, I’m purposely not indoctrinating them with this nonsense for their sake. Just because I don’t allow it in my home, nor give my kids presents, it doesn’t mean that I sit there on Christmas day branding their arms with hot coals. Think of it this way: last Tuesday what did you do? “Well nothing went to work, came home, nothing special.” Well that’s exactly what Christmas is to me – nothing special. In fact it’s the most irritating day of the year because I can’t do anything because you lot have shut down for 24 hours so that you can don red and white hats, drink and vomit (not necessarily in that order).
Strangers are the most difficult to respond to as they often turn their backs before you draw breath to explain. So you need a really concise reply to give as they disappear. I’ve variously heard suggested, “lakum dīnukum wa liya dīn”, “A’ūdhu billāh”, a friend told me that he normally just smiles and says “Allāhu akbar”.
My step brother suggested a slightly different approach:
“Merry Christmas!”
“Belated Ramadhan Karīm and Eid Mubārak!”
“Huh… what?”
“You know, the Islamic month of fasting and the festival at the end?”
“Yeah but… I’m not Muslim?”
“Yeah, and I’m not Christian/Pagan/Atheist (delete as applicable), so kindly keep your festival to yourself and I’ll do likewise!”
I like the way that our brother Gary Miller summarised the history behind the day:
“What great religious figure was [allegedly] the son of God, born in a stable or a cave at the end of December, who grew up and worked miracles, then died for the sins of men but three days later he was raised up?
Well as a matter of fact it could be any one of several dozen individuals, Osiris of the Egyptians, Adonis and Bacchus of the Greeks, Baal of the Babylonians, Mithras of the Persians, they all fit that description.”
There is an “It’s Christmas” aura that many exude and that for some reason we’re just supposed to accept that different rules apply. I purposely go out of my way to hammer home how normal a period this is for me. I remember when I had one of the local drunk/ticket-tout/scumbags stopped and searched by the police (which can be a part of my duty at work) on Christmas Eve. I was given this “But it’s Christmas, how could you?” puppy-dog-look. Hehe, not in my world it isn’t!
The only good thing about Christmas to my mind is the abundance of nuts. By which I’m referring to cashews and pistachios in the shops; and not, as funny as they may be, people falling down stairs or struggling home with more shopping than a mule could carry.
One person that every year receives Christmas cards from me is the bin man. And pending work colleagues (I seem to have a different manager every year) finally getting the point, I’ll doubtless be giving him many more over the years to come. “Here’s wishing you a Merry Christmas” and here’s wishing you’d just stuck it in the trash yourself and saved me doing it.
But the problem of Christmas-enthusiasm doesn’t end with non-Muslims; it’s the Muslim participation that’s more worrying. Suddenly tinsel starts appearing in the local Muslim-owned newsagents or grocers; putting aside for the moment that many often sell cigarettes, pork and alcohol. Actually, that reminds me about a Shaikh who studied in London for some time before returning to the UAE. He went into a newsagent like this and approached the shopkeeper.
“Do you have any whisky?” The shopkeeper knew who he was and became nervous, “Pardon?”
“You know whisky … to drink?” *makes drinking motion with hand*
“Well, no.”
“Why not?”
“Err… because it’s harām.”
“And what do you call that then?” *points at the top shelf of the magazine section where all the no-hayā’ material is on sale*
Muslim Christmas-ers, until recently, could hide behind Ramadhān; as the two were relatively close. I remember asking a Muslim chemist, “These decorations you have up, are they for Christmas or Ramadhān?” * Shifty eye movement * “Err… for Ramadhān!” But now that there is some distance between the two it isn’t as easy to conceal openly “joining in the fun”.
You only have to look at the local halāl butcher that puts up the sign “We would like to wish our customers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.” Have you ever asked one why they do this? The answer is normally along the lines of “Brother, what can I do? It’s good for business.” I reasoned with one, if the non-Muslims had an annual festival where they celebrated your Dad’s inappropriate relationship with young boys, would you join in the festivities? Obviously not, so what about a festival alleging an even greater lie (i.e. son ship) and against someone who should be even more beloved to us than our fathers (i.e. Allāh)?
Didn’t Allāh tell us:
And they say, “The Most Merciful has taken [for Himself] a son.”
You have done an atrocious thing. The heavens almost rupture therefrom and the earth splits open and the mountains collapse in devastation
That they attribute to the Most Merciful a son.” (Maryam 19:88-91)?
So I hope you’ll excuse me but I find Christmas offensive!
Iran - the evil nation-state...
Last Updated Wed, 14 Dec 2005 06:15:57 EST
CBC News
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stirred up international controversy Wednesday with a speech calling the Holocaust a "myth."
Ahmadinejad said the myth has been created by Europeans to create a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world.
"Today, they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets," Ahmadinejad said in a speech in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan.
Six million Jews were among those killed in Europe as part of the the Nazi Holocaust during the Second World War.
"If you [Europeans] committed this big crime, then why should the oppressed Palestinian nation pay the price?" Ahmadinejad asked in the speech which was carried live on state television.
"You [Europeans] have to pay the compensation yourself," he said, suggesting that all people in Israel should be transferred to other parts of the world.
"This is our proposal: give a part of your own land in Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to them [the Jews] so that the Jews can establish their country," he said.
Israel denounces 'rogue regime'
Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Wednesday the comments show Iran is becoming a "rogue regime" with an "extremist ideology [and] a warped understanding of reality."
This is not the first time Ahmadinejad has spoken out against Israel or called into question the validity of the Holocaust.
Last week at a speech in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, he said "Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces and they insist on it to the extent that if anyone proves something contrary to that they condemn that person and throw them in jail."
In October he told a group of conservative students that Israel should be "wiped off the map."
"There is no doubt that the new wave of [attacks] in Palestine will wipe off this stigma [Israel] from the face of the Islamic world," he said.
The next day he stood by his words saying, "My words are the Iranian nation's words."
Ahmadinejad was elected last June with a goal to make the country "a modern, advanced, powerful and Islamic" model for the world.
A loyal hardliner and former mayor of Tehran, Ahmadinejad had the backing of Iran's upper and middle classes.
Muslim entertainment
Italy tape: 'Joy' over beheading
Sunday, December 11, 2005; Posted: 5:41 p.m. EST (22:41 GMT)
MILAN, Italy (AP) -- Italian police were listening as the man identified as an Egyptian radical shouted with joy while watching a video of the beheading of American Nicholas Berg by his al Qaeda captors.
"Come nearer, watch closely, this is the politics you have to follow, the politics of the sword," he advised another man as Berg's screams rang out.
"Go to hell, enemy of God, kill him, kill him, cut it well, cut off his head," he said.
Authorities say the statements recorded from phone taps and microphones show that Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, a 34-year-old Egyptian facing trial in Milan next month on terrorism charges, preached a radical form of Islam and the need to carry out holy war against Western elements.
The trial is considered one of Europe's major terrorist prosecutions in recent years. Ahmed is not only accused of terrorist crimes in Italy and of having links to cells across Europe, but he also is considered one of the masterminds of the March 11, 2004, train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,600.
Guido Guella, Ahmed's lawyer, said his client maintains his innocence and claims he "never had any role in any association with terrorist aims." He said the Egyptian also says he is not the person speaking on the tapes.
But prosecutors say the statements, which appear in a report prepared by Italian anti-terrorism police, are proof of Ahmed's extremist beliefs. He has been indicted on terrorism charges for allegedly planning an attack in an undisclosed location.
In the May 28, 2004, conversation about the Berg tape, Ahmed's co-defendant, 22-year-old Egyptian Yahia Ragheh -- described by authorities as a would-be suicide bomber -- questions Ahmed's assertions.
"It's not a sin?" he asks.
"Who said this?" Ahmed replied. "It's never a sin ... because the cause is never a sin ... Are you scared? Are you shocked?"
"No no, I think it is a sin, I only think it's a sin," Ragheh said.
"When you enter a movement it's never a sin because there's a cause, the Islamic cause, all in hell ... everyone finishes in hell, everyone. For those who wound Islam the end is this."
Ragheh's lawyer, Roberta Ligotti, did not return calls from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Berg, a 26-year-old entrepreneur, went missing April 10, 2004, after leaving his Baghdad hotel. The video that surfaced shows him in an orange jumpsuit being held by captors, then being beheaded by a man who some U.S. officials believe to be terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The taped conversations also reveal Ahmed's alleged connection to the Madrid bombings, authorities say.
"There is something, there is something I can't hide from you," he said, lowering his voice in a conversation overheard in a Milan apartment two months after the attacks. "The Madrid attack is my project and those who died as martyrs are my dearest friends."
Spanish officials have described Ahmed as one of the March 11 ringleaders. Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said after his arrest that Ahmed was "probably among the principal authors" of the Madrid bombings, and that he was "preparing other attacks."
Officials have not said where Ahmed, who was trained in the use of explosives in the Egyptian army, was planning the attacks.
Iran - the festering sore that calls itself a nation.
Iran's Ahmadinejad says Israel should be moved to Europe
AFP ^ | December 8, 2005
Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that if Germany and Austria feel responsible for massacring Jews during World War II, a state of Israel should be established on their soil. Ahmadinejad, who sparked an international outcry in October when he said Israel "must be wiped off the map", also repeated his view Thursday that the Jewish state was a "tumour".
"Now that you believe the Jews were oppressed, why should the Palestinian Muslims have to pay the price?" the hardline president asked in an interview with Iran's Arabic-language satellite channel, Al-Alam.
"Why did you come to give a piece of Islamic land and the territory of the Palestinian people to them?
"You oppressed them, so give a part of Europe to the Zionist regime so they can establish any government they want. We would support it," he said, according to a transcript of his original Farsi-language comments given to AFP.
"So, Germany and Austria, come and give one, two or any number of your provinces to the Zionist regime so they can create a country there which all of Europe will support and the problem will be solved at its root," he said.
"Why do they insist on imposing themselves on other powers and creating a tumour so there is always tension and conflict?"
Al-Alam said Ahmadinejad was speaking in the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia where he was attending a two-day meeting of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference that opened Wednesday.
"Is it not true that European countries insist that they committed a Jewish genocide? They say that Hitler burned millions of Jews in furnaces ... and exiled them," Ahmadinejad told Al-Alam.
"Then because the Jews have been oppressed during the Second World War, therefore they (the Europeans) have to support the occupying regime of Qods (Jerusalem). We do not accept this," he said.
He also noted that European countries "believe in this so much and are so determined that any researcher who denies it (the Holocaust) with historical evidence is dealt with in a most harsh way and sent to prison."
The Holocaust was Nazi Germany's systematic slaughter of an estimated six million Jews between 1933 and 1945, mainly in the latter years of World War II.
Official Iranian media frequently carry sympathetic interviews with Holocaust revisionist historians -- who attempt to establish that the number of Jews killed by the Nazis was wildly exaggerated.
Iran refuses to recognise Israel.
Ahmadinejad said his second proposal was for "a referendum in Palestine for all the original Palestinians" to decide on the future of what is now Israel, the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
But the president said that "the best solution is resistance so that the enemies of the Palestinians accept the reality and the right of the Palestinian people to have land."
Oriana Fallaci:the Qur’an is the Mein Kampf of this movement
“There is not,” she asserted, “good Islam or bad Islam. There is just Islam. And Islam is the Qur’an. And the Qur’an is the Mein Kampf of this movement. The Qur’an demands the annihilation or subjugation of the other, and wants to substitute totalitarianism for democracy. Read it over, that Mein Kampf. In whatever version, you will find that all the evil that the sons of Allah commit against themselves and against others is in it.”
As they say, read it all...
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20359
What do muslims watch on TV to relax?
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A group of suspected Islamists, including the jailed killer of a Dutch filmmaker, watched films of beheadings, a court heard as they went on trial on Monday for plotting attacks and belonging to a terrorist group.
Dutch police arrested the 14 men after the murder of Theo van Gogh last November by Mohammed Bouyeri, who shot and stabbed the filmmaker before slashing his throat, an act prosecutors said at his trial in July "evoked beheadings in the Middle East, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq".
Prosecutors suspect Bouyeri, now serving life in jail, held meetings in his home for the group, who they say wanted to destabilize society establish an Islamic state through violence.
The trial is a test of a new Dutch law, which introduced the charge of "membership of a criminal organization with terrorist intent" carrying a maximum sentence of 15 years. The group of Muslim men are of largely Moroccan immigrant descent.
Monday's proceedings, in a packed high-security court nicknamed the "bunker", started with an attempt to question Malika Chabi, the 17-year-old former wife of one of the accused, Nouriddin El Fatmi, also known as Fouad.
Dressed in a long, rose-colored robe with a black headscarf, Chabi refused to speak in court, but the statement she had given to police earlier was read out by the presiding judge.
"A throat must be cut from the front, but not entirely so there is maximum suffering. Fouad said this while a film was shown on which people were beheaded," her statement said.
"He showed knives and films about slaughtering and showed us how to take a knife out of its scabbard and said he and Bouyeri stole sheep from a farm to practice slaughtering."
The judge said Chabi told police that El Fatmi had said they should drive a car carrying explosives into a shopping center to die as martyrs and then quoted verses from the Koran.
If all muslims were like this dude - I'd 86 my blog...
The RP's blog is one of the funniest muslim blogs out there. You owe to yourself to read him. Sadly, few other muslims share his sense of humour...
http://muttawa.blogspot.com/
The Religious Policeman FAQ
I've been getting quite a few emails of late, so I thought that I would update my previous FAQ.
1. Who are you?
I am a Saudi, originally from Riyadh, currently an expatriate in the United Kingdom. I am married (to my one and only ever wife), have a family, with a Filipino maid and driver (her husband) who are at the moment enjoying a paid sabbatical back home . Beyond that, I am not prepared to disclose.
2. Is that your photo?
No, it's not. It is actually Sheikh Ibrahim Bin Abdullah Al-Ghaith, General President for the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The head "Religious Policeman", or Muttawa. Callsign "Mutt One"
3. Why The Religious Policeman?
Because, in my opinion, the Religious Police epitomize what is wrong with my country at present. They combine religious fanaticism and intolerance with the apparatus of a police state. They are recruited from the dregs of society, yet they presume to tell other God-fearing people how to conduct their religious lives. They killed innocent young lives in Makkah, yet they were never held to account.
4. Why are you publishing a Blog?
I'm a great believer in the Internet, and in the power of information to cast a light into the darker corners of our world. Saudi Arabia is certainly one of those dark corners. I'm hoping that people will recognize that on the whole we are good folk, just like anyone else, but caught between an ultra-conservative Royal dictatorship on one side, and a fundamentalist religious establishment on the other. I am hopeful that this will inform their opinions of us. I would also like, in my own small way, to educate opinion within Saudi Arabia and around the world that might start to engineer change in our country.
5. Is it dangerous to do this?
The ruling elite would not, if or when they think about it, look kindly upon my efforts. If found out, I would certainly lose my job, as already happens to those who publish critical letters in the press. I might also become a guest of Prince Nayif, until I "got my mind right". However I'm not a super-hero; if I suspect that a net is closing, then I will cease blogging.
6. How do you avoid being intercepted?
All Saudi ISP's are connected to the outside world thru a bank of servers in the KACST (King AbdulAziz City of Science and Technology), where no doubt much listening goes on. However, like many Saudis, I illegally use a satellite link for my connexion. This materializes who-knows-where in the wider Internet. Maybe there is also some form of relay involved. Who knows? While in the UK, of course, things are much easier.
7. Where did you learn to speak such good English?
Thank you, very kind of you to say so. I was educated both in the UK and the USA. God also gave me the gift of being a linguist; indeed, I would go so far as to say that I am a language "geek". I could make myself sound like most Arabs speaking in English, simply by missing out "the", "a" and "an" all the time, but that would be difficult for everyone to read. I suppose I am also a bit of a mimic. In addition, learning English exposed me to a whole world of literature, from Shakespeare thru Tolstoy (in translation) to Garrison Keillor and all points between, not to mention all those movies, not to mention the trashiest bits of 21st century popular culture.
8. What did you study abroad?
That would be a giveaway! However in the UK I learnt to speak correctly, to be polite, to play soccer and cricket, and never to smile when making a joke. In the USA I learnt to misspell ;-), that Jews are not only human but can be really nice and extremely funny, to question and challenge, and that people only get the respect they deserve.
9. Are you really a Saudi and a Muslim?
Well, perhaps I am like that dog in the cartoon. Perhaps you all are, as well. Perhaps all the humans are doing what they should do, not being on the internet, but spending time with their families. Saudis are in the best position to judge from my writings and my knowledge of Saudi society, whether I am genuine or not. However I will not, as I was once requested by someone, "prove" my nationality, presumably by publishing a scan of my passport and Id card, for reasons that will be obvious to everyone else. If there is anyone who cannot read this blog without having proof of my nationality, they may be more comfortable with some of the other 3.5 million blogs out there.
As a Muslim, I certainly feel more comfortable in countries such as the UK, where they generally have have a more relaxed, but no less holy, approach to their religious life. Although it is not for me to judge, I am possibly a better Muslim in terms of the fundamentals of the religion, rather than in terms of the ritualistic rules-based "praying-by-numbers" approach. I also believe that whatever we call Him, we all worship the same God, and he requires us to love one another. I am not going to kill you because you read from a different book.
10. Will you reply to emails?
As I was taught at school, I will aim to reply to every letter I get, even if briefly. I will answer simple questions if they are not too taxing. However I cannot answer detailed lists of questions, but may address them in subsequent posts, as the opportunity arises. Occasionally I get requests to help write peoples' school assignments or Ph.D. theses, which is very flattering, but not part of the service! Also I cannot enter into an exchange of correspondence that might lead me to reveal any further personal information.
I am also grateful for emails pointing me to relevant items on the internet.
11. Why don't you write in Arabic?
Because the audience I am addressing speaks English. It consists of educated Saudis and Arabs, who speak English to a greater or lesser extent, and also the wider body of world public opinion, also largely English-speaking, living in countries that support the Saudi regime thru trade and political patronage.
If I were also to address an Arabic-only audience within Saudi Arabia, it would not just be a question of language, it would also be a question of style. To be frank, my brand of humor does not get many laughs in a Bedu encampment. The style would need to be simple and folksy, which doesn't appeal to me personally. If someone else wants to do that sort of blog, I will give them every encouragement.
12. Do you hate Saudi Arabia?
I don't hate Arabia; it is my country. I detest the name "Saudi", because it implies that the Saud family own it, instead of it belonging to God and the people. How would you feel about "The Bush States" or "Windsor Britain"? That aside, it is an ambivalent relationship. I love the sense of family and community in the country, but I don't like its backwardness, and the way it is used by royal and religious elites for their own ends.
I want to see Saudi Arabia develop and improve, and quickly, so that it can be a source of real pride for everyone. But it will only do that when it faces up to its problems, and decides to do something about them. Not everyone likes doing that, it makes them uncomfortable, and they often resent the people who do say "That's wrong!". So it can be convenient to try and dismiss people like me as "unpatriotic" or "un-Saudi". I'll live with that.
13. Do you hate Islam?
No, but I detest the people who have hijacked the religion for their own perverted ends, be they Wahabbi fundamentalists or Al Qaeeda terrorists. They don't represent the vast majority, but are bringing shame on all Muslims. In response to this, Muslims react in one of four ways:
(i) To ignore the problem, to perform their own devotions, but otherwise keep their heads down.
(ii) To deny that there is a problem, or when the problem is obvious, to deny that Muslims are involved, or when it's obvious that Muslims are involved, to deny that Islam is anything to do with it, or when it's obvious that Islam is a factor, to say that it's a "special case", etc. etc.
(iii) To become apologists. "You need to understand our history / our culture / our being victims of colonization /our persecution etc. etc."
(iv) To criticize. Again, this makes (i) to (iii) feel very uncomfortable. So internal critics get labelled as "apostates", "Islamophobes", "bad Muslims", "traitors" etc. However, history tells us again and again that (i) to (iii) don't bring about change; it either comes from internal criticism, or it is forced from outside. And I don't want to see Islam "reformed" by some neo-conservative Christian fundamentalist "Holy War".
14. Do you make this stuff up?
I know a lot of this stuff sounds wacky, but all I'm doing is reporting what's been published elsewhere, and passing my own comments. I always give a reference to the original text; if you don't like what you read there, don't blame me, I'm only the messenger!
The dialogs are of course my own creation; however the opinions and attitudes of the characters won't be a million miles from what I've portrayed.
15. Are you optimistic for change?
Well, we all have our good days and our bad days. I think we'll see some tinkering around. Perhaps the cinema, showing "approved" movies.
But long-term, I think the answer is O-I-L. While ever those countries that could bring about change, depend on the Kingdom for their oil, and as long as the oil is not threatened by Al Qaeeda, I don't think we'll see too much improvement.
But I'll soldier on anyway, doing my own thing.
Convert to islam - kill infidels...
SHE came from an ordinary family in an industrial Belgian town. She used to sell baguettes in a bakery, and worked as a waitress in a café. She showed the rebelliousness of a typical teenager, but even in their worst dreams her parents never imagined that Muriel Degauque would end her life by blowing herself up in a suicide bomb attack against American troops in Iraq.
The story of the 38-year-old Belgian’s journey from baker’s assistant to Baghdad bomber, making her the first Western woman suicide bomber, emerged in shocking detail yesterday as her parents tried to make sense of her life.
Jean and Liliane Degauque, a former crane operator and a medical secretary, said that they had watched their daughter’s gradual transition from Christian to Islamic zealot, and feared the worst when they saw the TV news on Tuesday.
“For about a month we had been trying to call her and just kept getting her voice mail. When we heard on Tuesday evening on the television that a Belgian woman had blown herself up in Iraq, we thought it was Muriel,” her mother said. A visit from the Belgian police the next morning confirmed those fears, and by yesterday morning Muriel’s friendly, pretty, face was smiling from the front of a Belgian national paper. “Here is the Belgian kamikaze, killed in Iraq,” proclaimed the headline.
Muriel was born in Charleroi, grew up in her brick home at 33 Rue de l’Europe — a quiet street in the shadow of a coal tip — and was educated at the local high school. “She was absolutely normal as a kid,” Jeannine Samain, a neighbour, said. She was never easy. “When she broke a vase in the sitting room, she said that Jean-Paul (her older brother) had done it even though he had been upstairs doing his homework ,” her mother told La Dernière Heure.
As an adolescent, she dabbled in drugs, smoked, drank heavily and sometimes ran away from home. “One time I had to go 170km to get her back from the Ardennes,” M Degauque said. She was more interested in boyfriends than studies. “I don’t know how many of them she had.” She found jobs as a waitress and a baker’s assistant, but was accused of stealing from the till. Tragedy then struck the family when Jean-Paul was killed in a road accident.
Muriel moved from Charleroi to Brussels, which has a large Islamic community. She married and divorced a Turkish man, and had a long relationship with an Algerian, who converted her to Islam in 2001. Three years ago she married Issam Goris, who was born in Belgium to Moroccan parents, and followed him to Morocco.
“They told us that they had a house in Morocco and some horses, and a Mercedes and three motorbikes. We never found out whether it was true,” said her mother, who blames Goris for brainwashing her daughter. When Muriel returned to Belgium, her mother no longer recognised her. She had become “more Muslim than Muslim”, she said. “The religion was totally ingrained in her. She only lived for that.”
Initially, she wore a hijab, or Islamic veil, but soon started wearing the head-to-toe chador that leaves the face visible. Finally she wore a burka. She became ever more estranged from her parents. “When we saw them, they imposed their rules. We were at home, but my husband had to eat in the kitchen with Issam while the women ate together in the sitting room. There was no question of putting on the TV or opening a beer,” M Degauque said.
“My husband got so fed up that he said the next time they came round we should leave them by themselves.”
Muriel and her husband lived in a small two-room flat in Saint Gilles, one of the poorest and most racially mixed areas of Brussels, paying €375 (£255) a month rent.
In mid-September they left, telling their landlord they were going to Kenya to try to find Goris’s father. “They had stayed in the flat for two years. I never had any problem with them. They did not leave any forwarding address, saying they might come back in six months to a year,” her landlord told The Times. “She wore a burka all the time. I never saw her face, only her eyes,” he added.
But Kenya was not their real destination. The two radical Muslims instead drove by car across Turkey and Syria into Iraq, determined to kill themselves and as many Americans as possible.
According to conflicting reports, Muriel killed either only herself, or six people. On the same day, in a separate incident, Goris was shot dead by American troops before he could detonate his belt-bomb.
"Most likely to become a martyr"
FALLS CHURCH, Va. -- An American citizen whose father worked for the Saudi Embassy is convicted for conspiring with Al Qaida operatives to assassinate President George W. Bush.
Ahmed Abu Ali, of Falls Church, Va., admitted to the crime in a videotaped confession.
As a boy, Abu Ali attended the Saudi Islamic Academy in Alexandria. He even became a member of the National Honor Society. In his senior year, Ali's classmates voted him "the most likely to become a martyr."
In the video, the 24-year-old said he went to Saudi Arabia in 2002 to study Islam, and met an Al Qaida operative who invited him to join the Jihad against America.
"I immediately accepted because of my hatred of the U.S., for what I felt was its support of Israel against the Palestinian people," Abu Ali said on the tape.
Abu Ali also admitted that he suggested blowing up American warplanes, warships, or targeting hi-ranking U.S. officials.
He also said it was his Al Qaida contact's idea to kill the president.
Ali Abu went on to say on the videotape, "I preferred this idea because it was easier to carry out since the U.S. president often appears in pubic places."...
During his trial, Ali testified that the Saudis beat the confession out of him. But jurors saw him on tape pretend to cock a rifle and laugh.
"What was striking was how relaxed he looked, almost carefree...[he] didn't look like someone tortured, pressured into confessing," said Roger Cressey, an NBC News Terror Analyst.