Islam, Authoritarianism and Intolerance

Why Nations Fail/

thedailybeast.com

Yesterday’s news might be seen as a confirmation of Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations idea, pitting Islam against the West.

First was the headline news that Islamist militants, angered by a trailer posted on YouTube depicting Prophet Muhammed as a sexual predator, homosexual and child molester, attacked the US Consulate in Benghazi, set the Consulate ablaze, and killed ambassador Christopher J. Stevens and three members of his staff. There were violent protests elsewhere, including in Egypt.

Second was the perhaps equally disturbing news from Pakistan of an 11-year-old illiterate Christian girl (described as “slow” by the news reports) now freed from jail but still running from the mob, threatening to kill and burn her and her family, because of “blasphemy” (she’s accused of burning pages from an Islamic textbook).

Add to this the general poverty and authoritarianism of the Middle East and North Africa and other Islamic countries (especially if you leave out oil wealth), the case seems open and shut.

There are many versions of why Islam is at the root of authoritarianism, backwardness and poverty in these countries. Perhaps the most famous one argues that Islam, by failing to recognize the separation of religion and state, naturally leads to authoritarianism. In a now famous book, What Went Wrong, historian Bernard Lewis popularized a version of this idea. He wrote, for example:

The idea that any group of persons, any kind of activities, any part of human life is in any sense outside the scope of religious law and jurisdiction is alien to the Muslim thought (page 100).

He went on to compare Islam to Christianity in this regard:

From the beginning, Christians were taught, both by precept and practice, to distinguish between God and Caesar and between the different duties owed to each of the two. Muslims received no such instruction. (Page 103).

Though popular, this view doesn’t seem entirely well grounded in history or scripture.

First, as we argued in Why Nations Fail, there is another obvious explanation for extractive economic and political institutions in the Middle East and North Africa: the legacy of Ottoman rule and institutions.

Second, the close relationship between politics and religion is not confined to Islam. Rulers have used religion to cement their power or support their attempts to conquer new lands throughout the ages. For example, though colonialism was not a religious endeavor, religious rhetoric and the project of converting heathens to Christianity did play a role in motivating the Spanish and the English alike and provided a pretty good “cover story”.

Third, it is true that secularism, in any of its forms, has been all but absent in Muslim lands, but this is at least as much because politics has co-opted religion rather than the other way around.

Fourth, there is really nothing in the Koran or even the Hadith about constitutions or how the government should be organized and operated.

But the question remains: it’s unlikely to be a coincidence, nor easily explained by the Ottoman legacy, that most Muslim countries are not democratic and almost totally lack civil society, and most branches of political Islam are intolerant and often violent.  More >>

An Islamist democracy?

Shadow Government/ By Kori Schake

It's official: The Muslim Brotherhood rules Egypt. After a tense several months in which the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces attempted several times to reassert control over the levers of power, Egypt's electoral council today announced that Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate, has been elected president of Egypt.

The SCAF had assured American interlocutors during the voting that they intend to swiftly hand over power to whomsoever was elected. But they also asserted a decree making themselves arbiters of the yet-to-be-written constitution and wielders of parliamentary powers until a new parliament can be elected (Egyptian courts had dismissed parliament last week, worrying many of collusion between the military and judiciary).

It is illustrative of the tumult Egypt has experienced since protests drove Hosni Mubarak from power that electing an Islamist president seems a less worrisome outcome than the election of a secular alternative that represents the corrupt "deep state" that Mubarak and his military cabal kept Egypt submerged under for 30 years.

Mubarak argued that without his strong hand, jihadist radicals would take over Egypt.  American administrations of both parties agreed with him, or at least were fearful enough we did precious little to attenuate his grip. A speech on the inevitability of democracy here, some minor funding of political party organization there...but neither Republicans nor Democrats redeemed our universal values in Egypt.  

Presidents of either party were unwilling to risk unwelcome change in Egypt of the kind elections brought in Palestine, where a party that brought violence into politics was voted into power. But the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is not Hamas in Gaza. Even in Gaza, Hamas has lost significant public support because of its incapacity to govern. The desire for safe streets, good schools, and functioning sewer systems is the true universality on which democracy attenuates extremism.   

Both in Gaza and in Egypt, Islamist parties are being held accountable, not just for ideology but for governance. This is the basis for the drop in popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt after their victory in the parliamentary elections last spring. Egyptian voters were put off by their ineffectualness, by their mendacity in committing to coalition governance then taking power on their own when it proved possible, by their claiming they would not run a presidential candidate since they controlled parliament and then entering a candidate in the presidential sweepstakes.

Voters did question their motives, take them to task for their reversals. A huge part of the appeal of Brotherhood candidates in Egypt has been their opposition during the Mubarak years. They seem to have clean hands, and that is an enormous political advantage as Egypt shakes off the tawdry hold of Mubarak's spoils system. It appears to have been enough to carry the presidential election, a stunning rebuke of the "secular" military.

There is much to be concerned about with the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power. They have been staunchly anti-American. They intend to reform the basis of society with Koranic law as its foundation. They are profoundly uncomfortable with Western mores, especially where the rights of women and religious minorities are concerned.  

But this does not mean Egypt's Muslim Brothers will be anti-democratic. In fact, they proved the more democratic force than SCAF since Mubarak's overthrow. There is little sign yet that they will refuse to play by the rules -- SCAF was more likely to bring about "one man, one vote, one time" than the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egypt's transition is disconcertingly messy. Both the process and the victors raise a serious question about how worried Americans should be about Egyptians' commitment to democracy. But with the advocates of representative government is still where we should place our bets, and offer our assistance.

Judge shuts down mega-mosque construction

WND/

Work on a mega-mosque already well along in the construction process in Murfreesboro, Tenn., has been shut down – the existing building’s future uncertain – by a court’s ruling the county avoided the legal process required for granting building permission for the project.

The ruling said the county’s actions effectively violated the state’s Open Meetings law during the time when the mega-structure was being approved.

“The court finds that the action of the county was not sufficient to provide the type of notice to citizens of the county that such matters were to be considered at the meeting of the Rutherford County Regional Planning Commission which should be expected under our law,” said the opinion made public today from the Chancery Court of Tennessee, 16th District.

“Under the mandates of the statute, the court then finds that the actions of that commission regarding the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro were in fact void and of no effect.”

While there was a notice of the meeting in a local newspaper, the paper itself had “virtually no paid circulation,” and there was no showing of any notice on the county’s cable television station or on its website.

“The court assumed there was no ill intention or willful deception on the part of the county,” the ruling continued.

“We do not attribute any sinister motives to the county, though we note the undercurrent of the argument presented by the plaintiffs. We simply find that the county failed to publish the meeting…”

The opinion noted that under the county regulations there is not an entitlement to a public hearing, but there is a requirement that the public be properly notified.

It further said that the denial of permission for a building to be used “as a religious meeting place” must be done in a non-discriminatory manner.

Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation, one of the attorneys working with the plaintiffs in the case, told WND the next step likely will be a renewal of the attempts by the county to grant building permission. He credited other attorneys on the case, Joe Brandon and Tom Smith, with arguing the case successfully.

He said the plaintiffs contended the process ignored several factors, including that the land where the now-unusable building stands formerly was a pig farm, which is supposed to be anathema to Muslims.

He called it a “political power move” on the part of the powers who wanted the mosque to be built.

The Muslim organization building the mega-mosque had obtained permission for nearly 53,000 square feet of buildings on its lot of land, and the first 12,000-square-soot section was nearly done.

Rutherford County officials have said that they don’t expect any buildings to be torn down, even though the process was violated.

Pamela Geller, publisher of AtlasShrugs.com, also is the author of the WND Books title “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance” and “The Post American Presidency: The Obama’s Administration’s war on America,” published by Simon Schuster.

She revealed how the Department of Justice, which though it has named the Islamic Society of North America, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other key Muslim groups and figures as unindicted co-conspirators in a scheme to fund the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, filed a friend-of-the-court brief demanding that the case against the Murfreesboro mosque be dismissed.

Whitewashing Muslim Imperialism

FrontPage Magazine/ By Raymond Ibrahim

Because it is now almost axiomatic for American school textbooks to whitewash all things Islamic (see here for example), it may be instructive to examine one of those aspects that are regularly distorted: the Muslim conquests.

Few events of history are so well documented and attested to as are these conquests, which commenced soon after the death of the Muslim prophet Muhammad (632) and tapered off circa 750. Large swathes of the Old World—from the India in the east, to Spain in the west—were conquered and consolidated by the sword of Islam during this time, with more after (e.g., the Ottoman conquests).

By the standards of history, the reality of these conquests is unassailable, for history proper concerns itself with primary sources; and the Islamic conquests are thoroughly documented. More importantly, the overwhelming majority of primary source materials we rely on do not come from non-Muslims, who might be accused of bias. Rather, the foremost historians bequeathing to posterity thousands of pages of source materials documenting the Islamic conquests were not only Muslims themselves; they were—and still are—regarded by today’s Muslims as pious and trustworthy scholars (generically, the ulema).

Among the most authoritative books devoted to recounting the conquests are: Ibn Ishaq’s (d. 767) Sira (“Life of Muhammad”), the oldest biography of Muhammad; Waqidi’s (d. circa. 820) Maghazi (“Military Campaigns [of the Prophet]“); Baladhuri’s (d. 892) Futuh al-Buldan (“Conquests of the Nations”); and Tabari’s (d.923) multi-volumeTarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk, (“History of Prophets and Kings”), which is 40 volumes in the English translation.

Taken together, these accounts (which are primarily based on older accounts—oral and written—tracing back to Muhammad and his successors) provide what was once, and in the Muslim world still is, a famous story: that Allah had perfected religion (Islam) for all humanity; that he commanded his final prophet (Muhammad) and community (Muslims) to spread Islam to the world; and that the latter was/is to accept it either willingly or unwillingly (jihad).

It should be noted that contemporary non-Muslim accounts further validate the facts of the conquests. The writings of the Christian bishop of Jerusalem Sophronius (d.638), for instance, or the chronicles of the Byzantine historian Theophanes (d.758), to name a couple, make clear that Muslims conquered much of what is today called the “Muslim world.”

According to the Muslim historical tradition, the majority of non-Muslim peoples of the Old World, not desiring to submit to Islam or its laws (Sharia), fought back, though most were eventually defeated and subsumed.

The first major conquest, renowned for its brutality, occurred in Arabia itself, immediately after Muhammad’s death in 632. Many tribes which had only nominally accepted Islam’s authority, upon Muhammad’s death, figured they could break away; however, Muhammad’s successor and first caliph, or successor, Abu Bakr, would have none of that, and proclaimed a jihad against these apostates, known in Arabic as the “Ridda Wars” (or Apostasy Wars). According to the aforementioned historians, tens of thousands of Arabs were put to the sword until their tribes re-submitted to Islam.

The Ridda Wars ended around 634. To keep the Arab Muslims from quarreling, the next caliph, Omar, launched the Muslim conquests: Syria was conquered around 636, Egypt 641, Mesopotamia and the Persian Empire, 650. By the early 8th century, all of north Africa and Spain to the west, and the lands of central Asia and India to the east, were also brought under Islamic suzerainty.  More »

The Arab Awakening: “To Democratise is to Islamicize”

newnations.com/This perception from Dmitri Trenin, the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center was by way of public explanation for the Russian stance on Syria. Unfortunately, we think it hits the nail square on the head. RUSSIA were being demonised because they have (since the 1960’s) been arms suppliers to SYRIA, yet some media try to make it appear that they have only recently become involved, like the Saudi’s clandestine help to the rebels. Given the neighbouring Israeli presence the US never did, nor were ever likely to supply Syria.

The fact is that this is a civil war that is going on in Syria. To deny that and call it something else is to prevaricate. It is a brutal civil war but not in every part of the country. Both the government and the rebels have done and are doing terrible things. There are no Geneva conventions here!

It isn’t new for Syria. The two powerful strands in the country are the secular Baath, led by the Assads and based on the approx 30 % religious minorities; and the Moslem Brethren based on the Sunni majority. In a sense this uprising is the latest round in a history of brutality between them, going back for decades.

As we have consistently reported over past months, arms have been flowing to the rebels from Saudi Arabia; Jordan; Lebanon and Iraq; indeed generally from the Sunni Moslem neighbours, because what the west seems to have not yet fully caught onto is that:


this war is about bringing the nation back to God!
Baath Syria is, as Baath Iraq was also, a secular state where all religions and none are equally acceptable.
The Arab League is almost entirely Sunni Moslem
SYRIA currently occupies a lot of news time. Those brave but reckless western journalists reporting from inside SYRIA are mostly there without permission, and so have their mentors from amongst the rebel groups, get their news and shoot their film from the perspective of the rebels on the receiving end of the shelling, etc. That does enable readers and viewers to have reports and see, not only the violence of the military assault, but also some of the horrors perpetrated by the rebels, particularly in literally ‘butchering’ certain classes of prisoner.

The government knows it is in a civil war, which it does not intend to lose. The western ‘line’ to have the president stand down, is presumably to allow a democratic choice of a successor. Such a presumption is either cynical in the extreme, or plain naïve. But ‘naïve’ won’t do for the US, UK or French foreign ministries.

They have picked sides. Yet the side they want to win has at least four heads. The BBC published a ‘Guide to the Syrian Opposition,’ which it says is “fractious and deeply divided.” The Syrian National Council that Foreign Secretary Hague of the UK is backing, are largely exiles living outside the country. Whatever the other opposition groups stand for, the one that matters is the Moslem Brotherhood. They have always been there and have rebelled before, based on Hama and Homs in 1982 when they took fearful casualties. If the overthrow of the Alawites were possible, then there is no doubt who a ‘democratic Syria’ would choose, as in Tunisia and Egypt. The majority are of course Sunni, (hence the support of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states) but with a large minority, some 30% to 33% who are not. Neighbouring Iraq already has a de facto Shia government, much to the dismay of the Saudis whose major worry at this time is their confrontation with Iran. Now the US has withdrawn, Iran indeed can be seen to be the major beneficiary of the US 1993 invasion of Iraq.  So much for miscalculation!

Indeed the US, UK, and French support for the rebels - any rebels, would seem primarily to be driven by the desire to eradicate Iran’s only Arab ally. Is it that it simply seems too good an opportunity to allow to pass by?

“The Friends of Syria” the name for the US/UK/ France conference held in late February in neighbouring Tunisia, was used by grandstanding western statespeople to protest the Syrian government’s assault on the rebel base area in Homs, in which many innocent civilians mixed up with the armed rebels, have undoubtedly suffered death and mutilation. But this illustrates that it is a civil war, inevitably ugly and unspeakably cruel. It is not very different to the recent events in Libya, but the upshot of that, where the NATO contribution made the big difference, can now be seen in the state of chaos that remains.

The Arab League as arbiters of democracy (see below) are a sad, bad joke. So many of their members - and of the western governments involved, have got a dog in this fight. Can there be any doubt that the US/ UK/ France/ Israel/Turkey see this as an opportunity to stick it to the Iranians? Their talk of peaceful resolutions, yet instant dismissive reaction to Assad’s referendum, indicates simply that they want him gone. But if that happened, the Alawites who would quite rightly be in fear of their lives, would pick another leader, his ’attack dog’ brother perhaps, a pugnacious Special Forces general.

Syria having been cold shouldered except by Russia, since the time of the Israeli wars, had found an ally in Iran. This, unusually for the middle-east has not been a matter of religion, since Syria has long been a secular state where all religions or none, are a personal matter for their citizens. The Alawites, like most of the other minorities, are one variety of ‘nonconformist’ Moslem, as are the Druses, the Ismailis, the Shia and more, who differ from the majority primarily in that they are not mainstream (Sunni). With a secular constitution, before beating up its own people, Syria could have been said, by definition, to be one step (a long stride to be sure), nearer a western style democracy than any others except Lebanon, in the Arab world (which as we can see, is still a very long way).

After a full year of revolution there are at least four separate Syrian rebel organisations each with different backers. Which would dominate, should they succeed? To the mainstream Sunni, it is an affront to belong to a state which allows freedom of religion. ‘Secular’ simply means ‘godless’ to the rebels, who are motivated to bring in sharia law and the dominance of their religion, (yet outsiders will claim as we do, that a secular state is a necessary forerunner of democracy).

The organised rebels are doubtless enhanced by nascent democrats, as in Egypt ‘the internet savvy’ generation, and those who have lost family members, but the long existing mainstream rebels of the Moslem Brotherhood desire particular change which, includes rejoining the umma, thus restoring the power of religion – specifically the Sunni branch of Islam. They also want revenge on the al-Assads and the Alawites.

To the rebels, self-evidently ‘God’ is a cause worth dying for. None of this is to deny that the government of the Alawites have run a tight ship in Syria, allied with the other minorities –Syrian Orthodox Christian, Druses, Kurds, Shi-ites, Ismailis, Armenian Christians, together totalling about a third of the population. In this severe regime they have not been significantly different to the other nations of the Arab Awakening, to which freedom and justice are strangers. The Sunni middle-class here have been compensated with light government and taxes, and have prospered. Hence central Damascus and Aleppo - the main business and population centres, have remained supportive of the Assads. The rebels have little support there, in fact to the contrary, since the revolt has obviously had a major negative impact on business.

There is a probability and this is our main fear, that if this civil war goes to the rebels, the Alawites and the other minorities including the Syrian and Armenian Christians with whom they are allied, would be subject to a far reaching religious purge, a terrible religious war, with the west, as now, standing helpless on the sidelines.

Under the Assad family it has long been by western standards, cruel to its enemies, and in this fighting it certainly has matched or even outdone the rebels, brutality for brutality. Of course the government can be seen to be doing this by their use of artillery, but it is not a solution for Assad to step down, to make way as the Western governments wish, for what? A democratic government like… where exactly?

See below: The ARAB LEAGUE. On which Arab state should a new Syria model itself?

Our SYRIA report concludes that ‘stalemate’ might be how that nation and this crisis will wind up. The fact is that this has been the ugliest confrontation in the ‘Arab Awakening’ with issues about heresy as prominent as democracy, and deep divides between the western powers with Moscow, Beijing and Tehran, and their Syrian proxies, none of which happened in the case of Libya. (Go To SYRIA)

The Arab League as arbiters of democracy World Audit Democracy table has a right sidebar panel below listing all the members of the Arab League out of 150 nations in the world in order of democracy. 2012 figures reproduced here. For methodology see World Audit.

United Arab Emirates	74
Kuwait	76
Jordan	81
Oman	85
Lebanon	89
Mauritania	92
Algeria	99
Morocco	100
Egypt	106
Saudi Arabia	111
Tunisia	120
Iraq	124
Syria	135
Yemen	139
Sudan	139
Libya	145
Somalia	145

Their highest ranking is 74th place out of 150 nations in the world! To have the Arab League pontificate about democracy is simply ludicrous. They were formed in 1945 and this is as far as they’ve got with their civil societies, after 67 years of sharing the world with all the many different forms that there are of political organisation.  More >>

Saving Muslims From Themselves

Canada Free Press/ Daniel Greenfield

After September 11 the reasonable thing to do would have been to take steps to save ourselves from Islamic terror, instead we went on a crusade to save Muslims from themselves. The latest stop on that crusade is Syria, where the foreign policy experts responsible for decades of horrifying misjudgments tell us that we are duty bound to save the Syrian people from their dictator.

Rarely do we ask why it is that Muslims so often need saving from their dictators. Or why a party that campaigned on improving America’s reputation by promising not to bomb Muslims anymore, is now improving America’s reputation by bombing so many Muslims and so often that it makes George W. Bush look like a tie dyed hippie. More >>

The Shafia murders: a pointy-headed "expert" weighs in

Terrorists Among Us: Jihad in America [Documentary]

Steve Emerson: Jihad In America

Mundo islámico: ¿un presente caótico o una sociedad nunca entendida?

Cubanalisis

Qué significa, pues, esta crisis? ¿Cuál es su carácter? ¿Cuáles son sus orígenes y sus expresiones? Y ¿qué clase de desenlaces podría esperar el mundo islámico para salir de ella? Al regir la vida económica y la sociedad, cada turbulencia intestina pone en crisis de inmediato a esta estructura y su ineptitud para refrendar sus nuevas funciones, y ello se ha patentizado en la ola de protestas masivas que ha sacudido toda la región en 2011.

 

Sin dudas, a las protestas y rebeldías, violentas y constantes, acontecidas en los últimos meses, se agregan las decisiones políticas (muchas de ellas desacertadas) que sobre el tema siguen asumiendo tanto Estados Unidos y la Unión Europea, como Rusia y China, que complejizan aún más todo este escenario.

 

Las demandas callejeras, conjuntamente con las presiones exteriores, provocaron los reemplazos en el poder, hasta ahora, en Túnez, Egipto, Libia y casi Yemen, desestabilizando de paso a otros estados como Siria, Qatar y Omán, e influyendo en posiciones más arrogantes por parte de los dirigentes palestinos en sus negociaciones con Israel.

 

En Occidente, el espejismo con el cual siempre se ha analizado y actuado en el orbe islámico ha llevado a pensar que luego de tales reemplazos, y los que se esperan en otros sitios, tendrían lugar escenarios más favorables para esas poblaciones, y posiciones políticas menos contestatarias a Occidente; pues se espera, ilusamente, un hecho “democratizador”.

 

Occidente no acaba de entender la profunda huella del tribalismo en el comportamiento político del actual mundo islámico, al no analizar que tal fenómeno, desde sus orígenes a una sociedad arcaica donde cada tribu o clan asume la ley natural de sobrevivir a expensas del más débil, donde no existen mediadores externos o gobiernos que apliquen la ley, y donde el perjudicado cuando vence se erige también en juez y en ejecutor.

 

El escenario del pueblo volcado a las calles y bazares, y como resultado, la caída de regímenes o personajes desagradables al Occidente, por mucho que nos motive a la solidaridad, no puede llevarnos a la noción de que tal hecho resulta una garantía de “democratización”, o incluso de un orden político menos represivo o tiránico y menos anti-occidental que el derrocado.

Mas >

Florida Appeals Court defends decision to impose SHARI’A (ISLAMIC) LAW

barenakedislam

Comment by Jim Campbell
If judges in our courts system aren’t soon given a unsantized education about the abject horrors of Sharia Law we may as well open our borders and start playing cowboys and Arabs now.  In this case it was an appointee of  Florida’s Governor Jeb Bush that needs a serious wake up call

Forget the liberal judges, the are a lost cause and will never be on the side of the Constitution. 
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, I’m J.C. and I approve this message.
A Florida appeals court appears to have cleared the way for a Hillsborough judge to use Islamic law to decide a key issue in a lawsuit involving a local mosque.
Tampa Bay  (H/T Susan K) In a case that has attracted national attention, the 2nd District Court of Appeal on Friday denied without comment a petition to prevent Judge Richard Nielsen from invoking Islamic law. The petition, filed by the Islamic Education Center of Tampa, contested a March ruling by Nielsen announcing his intent to use “ecclesiastical Islamic law” in the case.

Nielsen limited his use of Islamic law to deciding whether arbitration by an Islamic scholar mediating a dispute between the mosque and ousted trustees followed the teachings of the Koran. The arbitration itself is in dispute, with mosque officials saying it never took place.

The arbitrator ruled in favor of several men ousted as mosque trustees, a decision that, if upheld, could wrest control of $2.2 million in mosque coffers. Attorney Paul Thanasides, representing the mosque, said an appeals court decision without a written opinion means the court wasn’t addressing the merits of the case.

Thanasides said the U.S. Constitution and Florida law prevent Nielsen from following Islamic law. On Monday, he filed a motion with the judge asking him to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction. “Florida law is clear that courts may not decide corporate governance disputes involving religious organizations,” the motion said.

 

Lee Segal, a lawyer representing four ousted trustees, said the appeals court ruling was a “big-time” win for his clients and vindication for Nielsen, who does not comment on pending cases.

“This basically puts the case back in front of Nielsen, who has a good handle of what the issues are,” Segal said. He noted the judge could still rule against his clients if he determines that Islamic law was not, in fact, followed.
“There’s still lots of barriers for us to cross,” Segal said. The case touched off a storm of criticism against Nielsen earlier this year.
Web commentators have misidentified the judge as a liberal trying to subvert U.S. law. Nielsen is, in fact, a conservative Republican appointed to the bench by former Gov. Jeb Bush.
At the time of Nielsen’s original decision, the political atmosphere was already charged with debate that Islamic law had gained a toehold in U.S. courts. Even before Nielsen’s ruling, two Florida lawmakers, Sen. Alan Hays and Rep. Larry Metz, announced legislation to prevent the use of any foreign legal code being applied in state courts. The legislation was not adopted by Florida lawmakers.

In May, the Center for Security Policy released a study that evaluated 50 appellate court cases in 23 states involving issues related to Islamic law. The study noted Islamic law has been “formally recognized” in state courts. The cases involved mostly Muslim women and children “who were asking American courts to preserve their rights to equal protection and due process,” said the center’s president, Frank J. Gaffney Jr. “When our courts then apply sharia law in the lives of these families, and deny them equal protection, they are betraying the principles on which America was founded,” he said.

The truth about islam: Did Mohammad Exist?

Orlando Florida Imam Arrested by the FBI

By AmericanDefenseLeague
Walter Brown
We are told ad nauseum by Muslim advocacy groups, the mainstream press, and our Homeland Security Department that Muslims who commit or support terrorist acts are “extremists”, “misunderstanders of Islam”, and “hijackers of the Religion of Peace”. The facts, on the other hand point to the supposedly most trusted and knowledgable Muslim community leaders as the terrorists among us.

“Imams Gone Wild” by Alan Kornman

 Imam Abu Taubah aka Marcus Dwayne Robertson.

Read more >

Una visión sobre el mundo islámico ( I )/ Juan Benemelis

Cubanalisis 

El desconocimiento brutal sobre la literatura, la politica y el credo del espacio islamico, ha tenido repercusiones funestas para el mundo contemporáneo. Es notorio cómo durante los últimos años pasaron inadvertidos acontecimientos trascendentales de tipo intelectual y religioso, producto de que el análisis tradicional siempre ha enfocado solo aquello que acontece en los polos industriales del planeta.

La emergencia del ala ortodoxa actual, tipo Osama Ben-Laden, no guarda relación con el tradicional nihilismo y anarquismo de las bolsas de miseria europeas del siglo XIX. Es una filosofía de crisis de los segmentos educados y privilegiados de la sociedad que se desarrolló en las tumultuosas décadas de 1970 y 1980, al calor de la prosperidad "petro-árabe" y la incertidumbre de identidad que ésta desató y que corrompió una generación de intelectuales y políticos.

 

Para desmayo de los fundamentalistas, ya no existe el Egipto que Emil Ludwig describiera; el país no depende de un Nilo de bancos limosos aromatizados de jazmines, y surcado de falucas con lámparas de queroseno. Los cafés con sus pipas de agua y voluptuosas danzarinas veladas en tul ya son especies arqueológicas, pues los egipcios se twitean ahora con Star Trek, HBO y los videos de Michael Jackson. La economía ha crecido a golpes de petróleo y gas, con las remesas de sus emigrantes del Primer Mundo, el turismo y las aduanas del Canal de Suez. 

Para desmayo de los fundamentalistas, ya no existe el Egipto que Emil Ludwig describiera; el país no depende de un Nilo de bancos limosos aromatizados de jazmines, y surcado de falucas con lámparas de queroseno. Los cafés con sus pipas de agua y voluptuosas danzarinas veladas en tul ya son especies arqueológicas, pues los egipcios se twitean ahora con Star Trek, HBO y los videos de Michael Jackson. La economía ha crecido a golpes de petróleo y gas, con las remesas de sus emigrantes del Primer Mundo, el turismo y las aduanas del Canal de Suez.

 

Anteriormente desde El Cairo, las élites rectoras y pensantes obligaron al mundo islámico a que encarase sus flaquezas en 1948 —después de la expulsión de los árabes del nuevo estado judío— y en 1967, tras la Guerra de los Seis Días. Pero, en la actualidad, Egipto no goza de su pasada autoridad regional ante el protagonismo de Iraq y Siria y el militantismo de Arabia Saudita e Irán. No obstante, Egipto nunca anidará una revolución estilo Irán, pues sus pobladores esperan siempre de sus gobernantes un comportamiento faraónico.

 

El boom petrolero de 1970 tuvo efectos catastróficos para todo el quehacer cultural del Medio Oriente. En posesión de descomunales riquezas, los ignorantes y devotos jeques y emires de Arabia Saudita y de los emiratos del Golfo reclamaron para sí la agenda política y cultural de todo el mundo islámico. Hassan Hanafi, el conocido intelectual egipcio ha manifestado que, a partir de entonces, la verdad fue barrida, el discurso especulativo inhibido, y el intelecto mercantilizado por esta cultura del petrodólar de los jeques, de las fatwas iraníes y del yugo de una banda de déspotas locales.

 

En 1992, los extremistas islámicos asesinaron al escritor Farag Foda, defensor de la tradición secular egipcia y un pertinaz contrario al Islam militante. En 1994, el propio Mahfouz fue objeto de un atentado. Por esa fecha, el dramaturgo y novelista Elí Salem decidió visitar Israel al precio de ser un apestado. Estos hechos, unidos a la acusación de apostasía y la fatwa contra Salman Rushdie, si bien aterrorizaron a los intelectuales egipcios, no consiguieron apagar las reprensiones seculares.

 

El inmemorial antagonismo entre Bagdad y Damasco es más virulento que las rivalidades inter-árabes contemporáneas. Los intelectuales sirios (otrora a la vanguardia del nacionalismo árabe junto a los egipcios), han sido diezmados, censurados o exilados por oponerse a la mano dura de los Assad. Éste ha sido el caso del eminente poeta Ali Kanaap; de los dramaturgos alawitas Mamduh Udwan y SadAlláh Wannous, prohibidos en Siria y publicados extensamente en el extranjero; del filósofo político Sadiq al-Azm, el más acérrimo defensor de Rushdie; del afamado director fílmico Duraid Lahham, vetado en casi todos los países islámicos por censurar el fundamentalismo religioso y exponer la irreversibilidad del estado de Israel.

 

La Siria

 

Es muy prematuro asumir como indisoluble la actual partición en naciones árabes de este parche de terreno enclavado entre los Montes Taurus y los arenales de la Arabia, que antiguamente se apellidó la Gran Siria, y que por dos milenios estuvo uncida al carro de guerra de romanos, bizantinos, árabes, mamelucos, selyúcidas y otomanos, y del cual dejaron testimonios estupendos las audaces exploradoras inglesas Gertrude Bell y Freya Stark.

 

Siria es un país atiborrado de templos griegos, anfiteatros romanos, castillos de cruzados, e imponentes arquitecturas árabes antiguas. La urbe de Alepo al norte y a orillas del legendario río Eúfrates, es la Hal-pa-pa de los textos de Ebla que datan 5,000 años; es la segunda ciudad de Siria y una de las más viejas del planeta; destruida por los mongoles de Hulagú en el año 1260 y por Tamerlán, el cojo de hierro, en el año 1400. Con sus bazaares multinacionales (árabes, turcos, armenios, kurdos), Alepo es la entrada hacia la meseta turca de Anatolia, y conserva más vínculos históricos con el norte, Mosul y Bagdad (ambos ahora en Iraq), que con el resto del territorio. En medio del país se halla el espacio musulmán sunnita de Hama, Homs y Damasco. La región austral está ocupada por la comunidad islámica de los drusos. Hacia el poniente montañoso, y contiguo al Líbano, está el núcleo de los alawitas, otra secta islámica que se haría del poder con Hafiz Al-Assad y su actual heredero Bashir Al-Assad.

 

En la antigüedad, Siria era el nombre genérico de la región comprendida entre la península de Anatolia, Turquía y el Sinaí. El dominio de ese territorio fue un objetivo constante de las antiguas civilizaciones, desde los egipcios, que lo consideraban la puerta de entrada a su país, hasta los persas, que veían en él un puente hacia el imperio universal que proyectaban. En la parte central de sus costas se desarrolló, entre los siglos XII y VII a. C., la civilización fenicia, una sociedad de marinos y comerciantes que, sin preocuparse por la expansión territorial -ni siquiera por la unificación política: las ciudades fenicias siempre fueron independientes, aunque una u otra ejerciese temporalmente cierta hegemonía sobre las demás-, crearon la primera economía mercantil del planeta.

 

La rivalidad anglo-francesa echó a perder lo único que tenía sentido para ese paraje, la Gran Siria, que dividieron en seis entidades. El turco Kemal Atatürk recuperó un trozo del norte; los secretarios coloniales británicos dibujaron caprichosamente en un mapamundi los mandatos de Palestina, Transjordania e Iraq; y los franceses convirtieron su zona, más tarde, en Siria y Líbano. La parte que conservó el nombre de "Siria", está separada de Turquía por el arco de triunfo romano de Bab-al-Hawa.

 

Pese a que el territorio ha sido cortado por todos los costados, Siria -como el Líbano- es una cazuela de sectas, cofradías religiosas e intereses tribales parroquiales, enemigos unos de otros y, peor aún, cada uno con su localización geográfica específica, que la hace una versión levantina de los Balcanes.

 

Tanto los drusos como los alawitas son los remanentes de una ola de chiísmo procedente de Persia y Mesopotamia que hace un milenio se esparció por sobre la Gran Siria. Pero los alawitas, el 12 % de la población, practican una versión desteñida del chiísmo, con afinidades peligrosas al paganismo fenicio y al cristianismo (navidades, domingo de ramos, pan y vino en las ceremonias). Los alawitas se refugiaron en el secularismo turco y la sombrilla preventiva que ofrecía el multi-etnicismo de la Gran Siria para escudarse del fundamentalismo de los islámicos sunnitas. De la minoría alawita -y de los drusos-, reclutaban fusileros y burócratas tanto los otomanos como los franceses, granjeándose el rencor, que aún perdura, de los árabes de Damasco.

 

Los alawitas abrazaron el baasismo, un corpus doctrinario inspirado por el nacional-socialismo alemán de la década 1930, que cobró ímpetu entre los árabes de Damasco, Bagdad, Beirut y Palestina. El baasismo concluyó como una pose intelectual que infló el racismo a los árabes sunnitas contra los cristianos y judíos y que parió los regímenes dictatoriales en Siria e Iraq, e influyó en los militares egipcios que derrocaron al rey Farouk, y en los oficiales yemenitas que establecieron la república norteña de Sanaá, en los años 1960.

 

La aspiración de su clase política, incluyendo al clán Assad, ha sido el empeño de rediseñar todas las fronteras improvisadas por los europeos para restaurar la añorada Gran Siria. Pero, por ser esta Siria más pequeña que la otra Siria es que no dispone de atractivos políticos para la unificación de todo el Levante.

 

En noviembre de 1970 el general Hafez Al-Assad asumió el poder e inició un movimiento de renovación, introduciendo reformas en las estructuras económicas y sociales. Siria participó activamente en las guerras árabe-israelí de 1967 y 1973, durante las cuales las fuerzas israelíes repelieron sus tropas y ocuparon la meseta del Golán. Integró junto con Argelia, Yemen y la OLP, el Frente de la Firmeza, que se opuso a la política estadounidense en la región y a los acuerdos de Camp David. Sus tropas compusieron la mayor parte de la Fuerza Árabe de Disuasión, que en 1976 intervino para supuestamente evitar una partición del Líbano.

 

El círculo alawita que rige el país ha construido numerosas mezquitas, como un medio para aplacar a los fundamentalistas sunnitas, cuyas aspiraciones por un estado islámico fueron ahogadas sangrientamente por Assad. En lo adelante, el movimiento fundamentalista sirio optaría por la semi-clandestinidad, mientras el régimen ilegalizaba Internet y los teléfonos móviles. Pero eso no fue óbice para que Siria alentase el terrorismo internacional. Ella utiliza a los chiítas en el sur del Líbano para atacar a Israel; ejerce control sobre HizbAlláh asentado en el valle libanés del Bekaá, a la vez que facilita inteligencia, dinero y el tráfico internacional a organizaciones tipo Al-Qaeda.

 

La dinastía baasista de los Assad de Siria ha perdurado más que cualquier otra no porque fuese brutal, sino porque ha sido sagaz. Para ellos sólo existen agentes y enemigos, utilizan para mantenerse en el poder todo el arsenal letal que ofrece la tecnología de guerra y de espionaje.

 

La repentina muerte de Assad hundió al país en duelo por el único gobernante que conocieran la mayoría de los sirios. Prontamente, se realizaron las maniobras pertinentes para designar al único hijo con vida del occiso, Bashir Al-Assad quien, luego de haber sido nombrado comandante de las fuerzas armadas, asumió como nuevo presidente.

 

En mayo, el subsecretario de Estado estadounidense, John Bolton, incluyó a Siria en la lista de países integrantes del llamado eje del mal, acusando a Damasco de intentar obtener armas de destrucción masiva. Washington amenazó a Siria con sanciones económicas y diplomáticas, afirmando que el régimen ayudaba a fugitivos iraquíes.

 

Aunque con Al-Assad padre la retórica anti-israelita era intensa, con Assad hijo ésta ha llegado a niveles de crudeza tal que incluso el puñado de judíos de Damasco no se atreve a tocar los rollos de la Torá apilados en los rincones de las custodiadas sinagogas. Bashir Al-Assad se destaca por vilipendiar al israelita Natañahu, y reanudóa las relaciones con Palestina, que había congelado su padre, asegurando que nunca seguiría los pasos de Egipto y Jordania de una paz por separado con Israel. En ocasión del peregrinaje del Papa por los pasos de San Pablo, en el "camino de Damasco", Bashir Al-Assad aprovechó para expresar que él era un mandatario tolerante en el aspecto religioso, pero que ello no incluía a los judíos, quienes habían traicionado al profeta Jesús y al profeta Mahoma, y ofreció a un vacilante Papa una alianza anti-judía.

 

Siria es una entidad política congelada en el tiempo, en la cual cualquier tratado de paz entre Israel y Palestina, aparte de atraer las consabidas bandas de turistas cazadores de monumentos, desmovilice la supremacía alawita sobre su sociedad; de ahí la ferocidad con que ha reaccionado ante los pedidos de cambio y reformas políticas hechas por la población. Su dirigencia se halla aterrorizada ante la perspectiva de un cambio a lo Mubarak, y por eso sólo queda el poder de los alawitas, el clan de los Assad.

 

Estados Unidos y el pantano de Iraq

 

Luego de la descomposición del Imperio Otomano en 1918, Iraq fue inventado por Inglaterra, la “pérfida Albión”, a partir de tres provincias (Mosul, Bagdad, Basora) que nada tenían que ver una con la otra. Este Estado artificial ha llegado hasta nuestros días sin estallar en pedazos sólo porque quienes lo rigieron, siempre gobernantes sunnitas, lo hicieron en base a la represión sangrienta. El gobierno central iraquí del siglo XX fue el instrumento utilizado por una comunidad étnica-religiosa para beneficiarse de los ingresos del petróleo y oprimir a las restantes.

 

La inexistente nación de Kurdistán en los mapas geográficos o políticos, es una realidad mucho más estable que los Estados de la región reconocidos oficialmente por la comunidad mundial. Los veinte millones de kurdos ignorados por los negociadores de la posguerra que conformaron los Estados del Oriente Medio, pueblan las cadenas montañosas de los Zagros y de los Taurus. El Kurdistán está parcelado y sus partes han caído en diversos países limítrofes, como la Turquía oriental, el Irán, la ex Unión Soviética, Siria e Iraq. A diferencia de otros países del África, de los Balcanes, del Oriente Medio y del Asia Central, Kurdistán tiene más de dos milenos de coherencia geográfica, económica, cultural, religiosa y demográfica. Los kurdos no aceptan la división de su nación en las fronteras.

 

En realidad fue a partir de 1979 que la zona se transfiguró en un elemento de seguridad nacional para los Estados Unidos, debido a tres acontecimientos cardinales: la invasión soviética al Afganistán, el derrocamiento del Shah de Irán por un movimiento islamista liderado por el ayatolá Ruhollah Jomeini, y la revuelta de los fundamentalistas islámicos en La Meca. Sería el presidente Jimmy Carter quien estableció la famosa "doctrina Carter" que aplicaba la visión geopolítico a esa región. A criterios del presidente Carter: "cualquier tentativa de un poder hostil encaminado a lograr el control sobre el Golfo Pérsico era considerado un ataque sobre los intereses vitales de los Estados Unidos y por tanto repelido por todos los medios necesarios, incluido la acción militar".

 

La “doctrina Carter” estaba respaldada con la creación de fuerzas de despliegue rápido en cada continente. Así se creó el Comando Central (CENCOM) para conducir todas las operaciones militares en el Medio Oriente, con bases áreas en Bahrein, en el archipiélago Diego García, en Omán y en Arabia Saudita. El teórico norteamericano de la geopolítica y ex asesor presidencial Zbigniew Brzezinski escribió hace una década sobre los imperativos estratégicos de Estados Unidos en los cuales se hallaba como tema central la comarca mesoriental:

 

"Si los principales gasoductos y oleoductos de la región siguen pasando a través del territorio ruso hasta el centro de distribución ruso sobre el mar Negro en Novorossiysk, las consecuencias políticas de ello se harán sentir, incluso sin ningún juego de poder abierto por parte de Rusia. En ese caso, la región seguirá siendo una dependencia política de Rusia y Moscú estará en una posición lo suficientemente fuerte como para decidir cómo deben compartirse sus nuevas riquezas. Por el contrario, si otros gasoductos y oleoductos cruzan el mar Caspio hasta Azerbaiyán y de allí se dirigen hacia el Mediterráneo a través de Turquía y si alguno llega hasta el mar de Arabia a través de Afganistán, no habrá una única potencia que monopolice el acceso a los recursos".

 

Al imaginar Washington que la teocracia iraní abrigaba los designios de tragarse los estados petroleros del Golfo, pensó que los amenazados debían sostener financieramente al Iraq para impedir su colapso y la transformación de Siria, con su cruzada anti-israelí, en el super poder regional.

 

Aparte de Al-Qaeda y Osama Ben-Laden, la invasión al Afganistán a su vez se relaciona con los planes norteamericanos de extender gasoductos y oleoductos desde el Caspio al mar, atravesando Afganistán, algo que los talibanes habían rechazado tozudamente. Este proyecto concebido por el consorcio petrolero norteamericano Unocal, torpedeaba el concebido por los rusos e iraníes. Indudablemente que una de las consideraciones tras el oleoducto que atravesará Afganistán y el derrocamiento del iraquí Saddam Hussein se halla el debilitamiento de la OPEP. Tras la ocupación de Iraq la revista inglesa The Economist se plantearía la posibilidad de una inundación de petróleo iraquí en el mercado mundial, ante la necesidad del gobierno de ingentes sumas para reconstruir el país, algo que resquebrajaría a la OPEP.

 

El error estratégico de la campaña militar norteamericana, tanto en Afganistán como en Iraq, no fue de tipo militar, sino que ha residido en el objetivo político que se impuso de buscar el establecimiento del modelo democrático sustentado en fuerzas de ocupación del Occidente cristiano, en un medio islámico, otorgando legitimidad a los derrotados talibanes afganos y sunnitas iraquíes para lanzar una lucha “contra la ocupación”.

 

Sin dudas, la geopolítica regional norteamericana aplicada al Medio Oriente ha encontrado los mismos escollos que enfrentaron los ingleses durante su égida colonial en la región. El dilema siempre fue, y es en la actualidad, la tarea de administración y de pacificación. No se esperaba que en Afganistán resurgiese nuevamente el Talibán islamista. La estrategia contra la HizbAlláh islamita en el Líbano sólo ha traído el incremento de su influencia, poniendo nuevamente en peligro la estabilidad de ese país multi-étnico.

 

Al forzar elecciones democráticas entre los palestinos, se eliminó la autoridad de la organización Al-Fatah, la única capaz de imponer allí el orden, para resultar electo en su lugar el islamista Hamás, el némesis de Israel. El mismo error se cometió en Somalia, cuando la Casa Blanca apoyó a los sanguinarios caudillos para contraponerlos a los islamistas, que en realidad ya no eran tan decisivos en el país. Ello propició el fortalecimiento y la popularidad de los fundamentalistas que se apoderaron del sur, involucrando de hecho a Etiopía.

 

Por eso, la equivocación no está en la incapacidad de los iraquíes para gobernarse a sí mismos pacíficamente; esta acusación no toma en cuenta que es un país artificial, escindido en etnias, religiones y tribus, que se mantuvo gracias a la fuerza dictatorial. Asimismo, no considera que tras la victoria militar, Estados Unidos destruyó el tejido social sunnita que mantenía el control del país. El cronograma que se estableció para elegir un gobierno, diseñar una constitución, construir un ejército y una fuerza policial iraquí fue irreal, no sólo por el poco tiempo propuesto sino porque no abordaba el tema central, el del balance étnico, y abandonaba a su suerte a los sunnitas.

 

Washington cree que debe impulsar la democracia por toda la región; una agenda de promoción de la libertad, aunque diferente a la utopía del otrora presidente Woodrow Wilson, sin altruismos idealistas, sino en beneficio y como el mejor medio de defender la seguridad nacional de los Estados Unidos y de todo Occidente, bajo la noción de que las dictaduras son caldo de cultivo del terrorismo. Pero este es un objetivo no compartido por todas las elites que gobiernan en el Medio Oriente, ya de por sí despóticas. 

 

El paradigma de un Iraq unificado y democrático como un modelo para el Medio Oriente, induciendo reformas democráticas en otros países árabes cuenta con escollos insalvables: por un lado, no es viable un Estado unificado en Iraq, ni siquiera una democracia étnica, y por tal no resulta un modelo para la zona. Por otra parte, las sociedades islámicas actuales repudian la democracia como sistema político. En su anhelo por "difundir la democracia" Estados Unidos no se percata de que el término significa algo distinto en aquellos países con poca experiencia democrática, tales como Afganistán e Iraq, de lo que encarna en los Estados Unidos. En Iraq y Afganistán se vota de conformidad con lo que ordenan sus líderes religiosos, tribales o sus jefes militares.

 

La consumación de la democracia se ha planteado para los regímenes autocráticos populistas, como lo fue Iraq y como lo es Egipto, Libia, Yemen y Siria, pero Washington se cuida de proponerlas a las monarquías islámicas aliadas, tipo Kuwait, Bahrein, Qatar, Omán, etcétera a las cuales califica insólitamente de “moderados”.

 

El Medio Oriente es una región demasiado estratégica, demasiado emotiva y donde peligran los intereses religiosos más importantes del Occidente. La política mesoriental de Estados Unidos en el siglo XXI, y la de su máquina bélica, estará dictada por el petróleo, la protección de los productores del Golfo, las nuevas normas de conducta mundial, la protección de recursos vitales globales y la amenaza de que Irán se desplace hacia una categoría diferente de poder: la nuclear.

 

continuará

Ground Zero Victory Mosque gets scaled back considerably. For now

Author: barenakedislam

Fear not, New Yorkers? A monster mosque will not soar over Ground Zero. The news should have reverberated all over the city, ‘The Ground Zero Victory Mosque blinked!’ But if you shut your eyes for a second, you likely missed it.

(Don’t believe it, all muslims lie to infidels because their quran tells them to)
NY POST  Last month, in an amazing feat of contrition mixed with public-relations savvy, the man who controls 51 Park Place, the spot where developers threatened to build a 15-story, $100 million mega-mosque and Islamic center in the shadow of Ground Zero — said such a project will not be built.
Originally, Park51, formerly Cordoba (as in the Moors’ conquering of Spain Cordoba) House) was envisioned as a monster complex, complete with sex-segregated swimming pool and religiously segregated prayer spaces.
But buried deep inside the mosque-supportive New York Times, on a Saturday, was an amazing mea culpa by Sharif El-Gamal, lead developer of the boneheaded project, which, polls demonstrate, is opposed by 70 percent of New Yorkers.
El-Gamal said raising $100 million was unrealistic. And 15 stories? Would Park51 become, as planned, a soaring testament to the rise of Islam? Or, as some protested, a giant middle finger erected close to the scene of a massacre?

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