Month: February 2006

Democracy in Haiti

Here’s a case study in which the complete pessimists seem to be wrong. We’ve just seen a self-run democratic election in Haiti – with most parties accepting the results peacefully. Cultural change takes time. The debate between the neoconservatives and realists might not be so zero-sum. The neocons are right about the long term; the realists have much to contribute in assessing the short term. Why not a fusion?

Quote for the Day

"What they [the bombers] did was good. They have warned that we are here, we Muslims. People have taken notice that we are here. They died so that people would take notice . . . big meetings and conferences make no change at all. With this, at least people‚Äôs ears have pricked up," – Ali, spiritual leader of the Al-Madina Masjid mosque in Tunstall Road, Beeston, where London’s 7/7 bombers had worshipped. Check out the full story for how Islamist terrorists receive backing from some mainstream clerics in Britain.

Creeping Sharia Watch

Its important to keep an eye on moments of Western abandonment of freedoms to accommodate Islamists and over-sensitive mainstream Muslims. An email from Denmark is a pretty good place to start:

"Here is an interesting bit of background that has been overlooked, but is a perfect example of the chill on freedom of ideas that is going on here.

On Oct. 4, 2004 (a month before Theo Van Gogh was murdered), a professor at Copenhagen University’s Middle East Studies program (the Carsten Niebuhr Institute) was lured into a car by 3 Arabic-speaking men. He was then verbally abused for reading aloud from the Koran in his classroom (with the reason given that he is a Jewish "infidel") and viciously beaten. As they threw him out of the car, his attackers threatened to murder him and his family if he went to the police.

In the aftermath, the university’s head of department gave the following telling account:

"We have members of Hizb ut-Tahrir (an extremist group that on its Danish website has advocated the murder of Jews "wherever they are found") that are trying to solicit new members. They never let themselves be known, but suddenly a poster will appear with a veiled incitement to kill Jews, or pamphlets will be pushed under someone’s door. We have apparently been subjected to a form of infiltration (…) So there are several reasons, independent of one another, that have made me change my opinion on the university as an open place, where all can come and go. The world has changed. Today, we simply have to know who we are letting in."

Translated from the Danish Wikipedia: The chairman of the Danish branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, Fadi Abdullatif, was in 2003 sentenced to a 60-day suspended sentence for threats, aggravated harassment, and incitement to murder Jews (…) or distributing leaflets directed at Jews with the following quote from the Koran: "And kill them, wherever you find them, and drive them, wherefrom they drove you."

Yet, Denmark has continued to allow this group to operate, which shows how inclusive this country’s freedom of speech norms truly are."

The Danes allow murderous Islamist thugs to practice free speech, including the advocacy of murdering Jews, but are not allowed to publish cartoons revealing the extent of the intimidation – without consequences.