Exciting!

Tariq Ramadan comments on Swiss election

2009-11-29T12:47:00.000-08:00

Tariq Ramadan writes in the Guardian about the referendum in which the people of Switzerland voted to ban the building of minarets in their country:

At the very moment Europeans find themselves asking, in a globalising, migratory world, "What are our roots?", "Who are we?", "What will our future look like?", they see around them new citizens, new skin colours, new symbols to which they are unaccustomed.
Over the last two decades Islam has become connected to so many controversial debates – violence, extremism, freedom of speech, gender discrimination, forced marriage, to name a few – it is difficult for ordinary citizens to embrace this new Muslim presence as a positive factor.

I agree that some people in Europe are finally asking themselves what values they stand for and what they can accept in their countries from immigrants. Furthermore, I agree that this introspection is fuelled by the kind of controversies that have come with the introduction of large numbers of Muslims into Europe: violence, discrimination, honor killings, forced marriages, opposition to freedom of speech, etc.

Now I don't know if Tariq Ramadan has a sense of humor but I find it to be the understatement of the century to say that the reaction is merely one of confusion or 'being unaccustomed'. It is not. It is a question of outright opposition.

I have been repeating for years to Muslim people that they have to be positively visible, active and proactive within their respective western societies. (...)
They (Muslims and political parties, in Europe as in Switzerland) fail to assert that Islam is by now a Swiss and a European religion and that Muslim citizens are largely "integrated". (...)
We cannot blame the populists alone – it is a wider failure, a lack of courage, a terrible and narrow-minded lack of trust in their new Muslim citizens.

So basically he is asking Europe to just bite it. He knows full well that Islam is seen in terms of human rights abuses and violence, but does not deny it or try to explain it. He is simply stating a fact and offers no positive alternative spin. He only asks that everyone else accepts it as it is. We are here - violence, bigotry and all - we are not going away - so deal with it. He even has the gall to ask for trust.

He doesn't even frame the violence, forced marriages, opposition to freedom of speech, etc. as something negative in itself. Rather, he focuses on the fact that Europeans have this impression as that which is unfortunate - not the acts themselves. No denial, excuse or anything like that. No, no. The real problem is in those people not willing to cede Europe to Islam.

His only call for action or concrete advice is this:

Across Europe, we must stand up to the flame-fanning populists

What about the actual flames from Jihadi attacks, embassy burnings, suicide bombings? That is what the people of Switzerland stood up against- and I applaud them.

Multiculturalist mechanics

2009-08-15T03:19:00.000-07:00

Robert Spencer speaks about the power to define terms such as Islamism or Jihad. And what the consequences are to free societies when they lose that power. Check it out by clicking the link.

Below Pat Condell covers a lot of ground in explaining how it is possible to oppose an ideology and yet not be a racist at the same time. Who would have thunk it?

Salman Rushdie basically speaks about the same as Pat Condell above but does it in a lower tone of voice. Same amount of sarcasm, however. Fast forward to 2:50 into the file to get to the important parts about multiculturalism:

You can find the entire interview with Salman Rushdie and Irshad Manji here. Exciting and important stuff.

This past Thursday at least 12.000 Danes went on the streets of Copenhagen to protest the denial of asylum to some 200 asylum seekers who were unable to explain why they should have asylum here, other than living in their own country of Iraq was not as pleasant as living in Denmark.

Of course that is just my version of the story. One of the organizers (whose name I forget) of the Copenhagen protests said to TV2 NEWS that "they don't stand a chance" (if they are sent).

Well, currently almost 30 million other Iraqis are living just fine in Iraq. Furthermore, each week hundreds of Iraqis living in Denmark go back there on vacation. Once they secure legal stay here, going back isn't all of a sudden so dangerous after all.

If some parts of Iraq are safe and some are unsafe, what is then wrong with going back to live in the safe parts? These people are obviously willing to live far from "home". Why is a different province of their home country so utterly wrong when a different part of the world, such as Denmark, is so right? I don't think anyone is telling them to go live on top of a bomb factory. Not to their faces anyway.

The Iraqis in question had occupied a Danish church, Brorsons Kirke, for several months, possibly thinking that normal laws don't apply there. For the record: they do. When the police came and talked them into leaving the church a couple of hundred activists showed up and tried to block the police cars from leaving - mostly by sitting down in front of it but the bus did also leave with a broken front window. When the police used force to remove them they appeared to be shocked and appalled and now complaints over the police are flying like cobble stones in the air.

The same day police was chased out of the notorius Muslim ghetto of Vollsmose by automatic weapons' fire.

Yes, let's add another 200 immigrants to these ghettos... That'll help :-P

It's not about the tools

2009-07-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

I like taking pictures. But just like everyone is a f*cking comedian when you don’t need it so, it seems, everyone is a professional photographer-wannabe these days. With quality digital cameras having come within the price range of normal people now, more and more go out and buy decent equipment. Good for them.

What annoys me, however, is the prevailing notion that the more expensive equipment you have, the better photographer you are. Good equipment gives the photographer more options and usually the chance of taking a decent shot in poor lighting conditions where cheap equipment would give up. What makes a good photograph depends, however, not on the number of extra features switched to ON but rather the sensibility, vision, technique of the photographer and of course to chance. Don't underestimate chance and don't rely on your equipment to produce art.

Of course it bothers me that photos I took with my old 2 mega pixel FujiFilm camera are too shitty to blow up on a wall. Better and more expensive equipment would have made a definitive difference there but I dare say that better equipment alone would not have produced those photos. Machinery needs someone to operate it and those photos are a product of me - not FujiFilm Corp..

I couldn’t be bothered registering to leave a comment but I quite agree with this blog post .

Obviously he is trying to come to grips with his gadget craving withdrawal symptoms but he is on to the right thing:

I am not going to pretend that having good equipment doesn't matter in photography, much as I often wish otherwise; to compete commercially at the very top ranks of game one will need to be able to stand up to the best in every technical aspect, and that means spending eye-watering sums of money. Having said that much, however, the top photographers did not get to where they are by spending small fortunes at the beginning of their careers, but by working their way up the food chain, and the most important ingredient in doing this is to have a clear, unique aesthetic vision of what one wishes to accomplish: with this in place, even a tiny, highly-compressed image can grasp a viewer's attention

A second point I want to make about photography is the Japanese obsession with taking pictures of sakura flowers. I just don’t think it is healthy or normal for a guy to spend that much money, time and effort on taking pictures of small pink flowers. It’s not like it’s a novel subject either. Every year sites like Flickr is flooded with pictures of the damned things.

When I constantly have to listen to speeches of how weak, childish or feminine I am for eating the occasional Danish pastry I just can’t help but finding it ironic and ridiculous the amount of energy being put into immortalizing the same pink flowers by Japanese men year after year. With all that equipment you would think that people would come up with other subjects to focus on as well. But the sakura season is the only time a year I see Japanese come out in full force like this:

Links

2009-07-16T03:43:00.001-07:00

Ok so I finally got around to updating my links. With an average life-span of a year and a half for most blogs it's no wonder that many of them had been dead for a while.

R.I.P. expecially to North Korea Zone, which was always a joy to read.
Respect especially to EastWestSouthNorth. I have no idea how he keeps up the pace and quality. His site may not be visually pretty but content-wise it is out of this world.

I put in a few "new" ones that appear to be as solid as most commercial sites are.
I also tried to put in Gates of Vienna and Centre for Social Cohesion but for some reason they just won't pop up.

Turkey Has No Place in EU

2009-05-02T07:33:00.000-07:00

As part of his campaign leading up to the EU Parliament elections June 7^th the former vice prime minister and frontrunner for the conservatives Bendt Bendtsen (cons.) told media that he did not think that Turkey should ever achieve full membership of EU. Instead he would offer Turkey a privileged partnership. He is cited in the media mostly as referring to the German CDU for justification. Himself neither very brave nor a great thinker it may actually be true that he has to hide behind the Germans instead of just sticking to his guns.

CDU’s point is something along the lines that since Turkey is Muslim they have different values than Christian Europe. A point also commonly cited in France for opposing Turkish membership.

This blogger seems to know that Bendtsen is actually thinking about Turkey’s actions under the Mohammad cartoon crisis; general problems with freedom of speech and Turkey’s vehement resistance to Anders Fogh Rasmussen becoming the next secretary general of NATO.

A common reaction among commentators here in Denmark has been that Bendt Bendtsen’s statement was a cheap populist shot aimed only at creating publicity. The chance that he actually holds the opinion that Turkey does not belong in EU is brushed off as ridiculous. Especially since the official opinion of the government that he was a member of not so long ago was that EU should work towards full membership for Turkey.

Lord knows I am not a big fan of mr. Bendtsen but his remarks did spark a discussion here which I think is important. Several other members of the governing parties have come out in full support of this opinion. Others express understanding. Front runner for the Liberals Jens Rohde says he understands the opposition to Turkish membership: “everyone in the world – except perhaps Obama – can see that the Turkey of today does not have a chance in hell of gaining membership. (...) I too am sceptical of their style of government when for instance a writer is put on trial for writing a book critical of Islam. In that sense they are moving further and further away from membership”. He continues, however, that he is confident that Turkey will not become a member until they live up to the formal criteria.

This too is a common way to try and silence critique: "They won't join until they live up to the criteria, which by the way wont be until far into the future."

The problems as I see them are two: Experience shows that in EU 1) popular opinion does not carry any value; 2) neither do formal accession criteria.

What matters is expansion.

70 percent of both Europeans and of the Turkish population oppose Turkish membership. Shouldn’t that mean something? When a popularly held opinion is voiced against the grand plans that EU has scheming it is brushed off as irrelevant and the train just keeps on steaming ahead.

We saw this particularly bad tendency at the Dutch, French and finally Irish no-votes to the paper called the EU Constitution, when it was still called that, and then again when it had changed name to the Lisbon treaty. All that EU politicians did the first time around was to fake concern and then just change the name. When it was rejected again they told Ireland to take their time and come back when they had changed their mind. The lack of respect that EU politicians have for public opinion is deeply concerning to me. You may even say that I am personally offended.

Just like Turkey today, Bulgaria and Rumania were also nowhere near compliance with accession criteria when they were acceded to EU. But we were told that EU had already “promised” that the two countries would become members at a certain date and so the criteria were all of a sudden not so important after all.

So, what happens in 20 years when Turkey is still a fucked up country and no where near living up to the criteria? Are we going to hear the same drill: "Well, we promised them membership so they are just going to have to catch up later"?

My main concerns as regards Turkey in EU are mostly immaterial such as the political and religious culture and ethics of Turkey and the fact that Turkey willingly acts as messenger for OIC in their efforts to curb human rights and freedoms. Concerns that are easy to ignore if expansion is all you care about.

Turkey has signed the Cairo Declaration, which states such ridiculous things as: “(art. 2,a) it is prohibited to take away life except for a Shari’ah-prescribed reason”; “(art. 2,d) Safety from bodily harm is a guaranteed right … and it is prohibited to breach it without a Shari’ah-prescribed reason.” “(art. 9,a) The State shall ensure the availability of ways and means to … be acquainted with the religion of Islam”; (art. 10) “Islam is the religion of unspoiled nature. It is prohibited to exercise any form of compulsion on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to convert him to another religion or to atheism”; “(art. 12) The country of refuge shall ensure his (the refugee’s) protection until he reaches safety, unless asylum is motivated by an act which Shari’ah regards as a crime.” (such as homosexuality or religious conversion); “(art. 19,d) There shall be no crime or punishment except as provided for in the Shari’ah”; “(art. 24) All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari'ah.”; and “(art. 25) The Islamic Shari'ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification to any of the articles of this Declaration”.

Any country, which is signatory to the Cairo Declaration is, in my opinion, unfit to become a member of EU.

Durban Review Conference still a sham

2009-04-20T02:27:00.000-07:00

So Denmark participates in the Durban Review Conference set to last April 20-24^th 2009. Yesterday the Foreign Ministry announced that Denmark would go along with the majority of nations in EU and apparently that means we are going. Not a very principled stance if you ask me.

Whereas EU unity on any kind of foreign policy issue would be preferable, weighing that illusion over the very real prospect of giving in to various oppressive regimes’ idea of human rights is very worrying indeed.

This sheepish notion that it is more important to stick together than the contents of the issue being discussed is unfortunately a common one. We see it not only in comments deploring the inability of EU to make up its mind but also in the voting patterns of 3rd world countries in the UN: "there is a solidarity that people will maintain, even in the face of that which is manifestly not in their interest or even manifestly wrong. The larger value, for a lot of countries, is to stick together because they feel weak and powerless. They largely are, but… they seem to feel that if they can stick together, they at least have some kind of clout vis-à-vis the United States and the other powerful countries".

Leader of Centre for European Politics at the University of Copenhagen Marlene Wind in one sense has the right idea when she says: “EU not attending and leaving it all to more or less fundamentalist regimes is undermining the entire UN system and the credibility of UN”.

Yes… but you say it like it’s a bad thing??!?!? Her next comment reveals her misunderstanding: “This is a UN conference and if countries that think like the free western world no longer dominate those values and norms then the long prospect is very unpleasant indeed.”

What she apparently doesn’t know is that the cards in the UN Human Rights Council are already stacked in favour of countries that want to attack the West. As I wrote about here, studies by both the Canadian government and the European Council on Foreign Relations are clear in their analysis:

“The Committee is concerned that, faced with these bloc politics, there is little that human rights defenders such as Canada can currently do on the Human Rights Council. The Western Europe and other states group of members is effectively outnumbered.”

“The trend away from the Europeans is markedly worse on the new Human Rights Council (HRC) where EU positions have been defeated in over half the votes.”

In other words EU boycotting the UN is not a question of handing anything over to dictatorships and thus unfortunately undermining the UN. It is a question of undermining the UN because you accept the fact that various oppressive regimes and enemies of the West already control the UN Human Rights Council and have made it into a vehicle for attacks on the West. And yes that is very unpleasant indeed.

In a perfect world EU would agree on how to oppose limitations on our hard-won freedoms and present a united front till the very end. Unfortunately that is far from realistic. Germany’s withdrawal yesterday is in clear acknowledgement that amendments to the final documents at UN conferences may occur up to the very last moment leaving no time for EU to discuss that and achieve a common stance (as if that ever happens anyway). Looking at the people involved and the draft declaration as it was presented one day before the conference Germany therefore wisely opted not to grace this mockery of a human rights conference with her presence.

Among other nations the US has also wisely backed out of Durban II. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has this comment: "Some media have interpreted the US withdrawal as based on the continued retention of language on defamation of religion and anti-semitism in the outcome document, when in fact no such language exists in the text adopted last week," Pillay noted. "In addition, the draft outcome document clearly states that ‘the Holocaust must never be forgotten’ and deplores all forms of racism including Islamophobia and anti-Semitism."

This is exactly the problem: the draft outcome document clearly (…) ‘deplores all forms of racism including Islamophobia.

First of all I object to the word Islamophobia. As if it is a disease to disagree with stoning as a reasonable reaction to homosexuality. It is not. Secondly disagreeing with Islam is not racism. Islam is an ideology, a set of ideas - not a race.

This part of the document is fully sufficient to warrant a boycott of Durban II. If criticizing a set of ideas amounts to racism then we might as well dismantle democracy altogether right away. Or we might acknowledge that people disagree with each other and learn to live with it.

Apart from India, bringing western ideas of right and wrong to the colonies did not create a whole lot of good things. Rather, the project ended in a large number of wars and hatred towards the West. For the OIC to try and bring their ideas of right and wrong into the West now is bound to not create a whole lot of good things either.

End the Obama Hysteria

2009-01-28T04:17:00.000-08:00

Ok, so there is a new American president and no one may be worse off for that. Hoorah, congratulations and so on. What I don’t understand, however, is the level of hysteria accompanying his candidacy and inauguration. Please stop it.

A few examples:

CNN reports:

"My fervent prayer is that there will be peace on Earth in all nations, and let all countries unite together to make this dream come true," said iReporter Shari Atukorala of Kandy, Sri Lanka. "To the President-elect Barack Obama: Sir, you can do this for all of us."

In Chicago

"at least five people were arrested across the city after Barack Obama's rally in Grant Park, including a woman who slapped a Chicago police officer, saying police couldn't arrest her anymore, prosecutors said today.
Most of the others celebrated the historic occasion with gunfire.
Celita Hart, 19, stood silently in court today when she appeared for a bond hearing.
Prosecutors said Hart, who is black, yelled " 'White , McCain--you white police can't do nothing anymore.'" With that, she reached through the window of a squad car and slapped a white male officer in the face, according to Assistant State's Atty. Lorraine Scaduto."

Click the above link. The title of the story is “Some mayhem, arrests after Obama rally”. I love that. Some mayhem … that’s grand.

Danish media and the public have been not been exemplary either. During the campaign Obama was portrayed as a kind of social democratic black Jesus-figure who would magically transform the state of the world into peace and happiness. Danish social democrats have hardly been able to contain themselves with joy.

And the wishful thinking continues. On a Danish web-site for communication professionals professor Christian Kock wrote this “analysis” of Obama’s inaugural address (my translation):

“it was surprising that following only a recognition of George Bush and his “service to the nation” Obama was extremely concise about all the political subjects where his administration would do something completely different than the predecessor and make right the mistakes of the past: “we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics” ... ” the time has come to set aside childish things” ... ”stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply”.”

End paragraph.

Christian Kock is a professor at the University of Copenhagen. More so than in other countries, achieving the title of full professor in Denmark is extremely difficult. It’s expensive for the universities and they tend to prefer associate professors instead. The job they do is more or less the same anyway. The fact that Christian Kock is a full professor shows that he is extremely qualified within an area the university finds important. In this case, Christian Kock names his main research areas, interests and competencies as: theory of rhetoric, history of rhetoric, reception aesthetics, argumentation, political debate, theory of presentation, written presentation and pedagogy.

All those qualification and yet he finds that “an end to petty grievances”, “false promises”, “worn out dogmas”, “childish things” and “stale political arguments” accurately describe Obama’s political focal points. Those terms can mean absolutely anything you want them to mean. Tellingly professor Kock is unable to describe exactly what it is Obama wants to do other than: “do something completely different”. Great!

This is embarrassing.

Foreign policy is driven by events. I predict that some serious event will come along and test Obama’s resolve and backbone. Having to deal with the threat of being portrayed as weak by his critics in the US he will opt for a tough military response. This will strengthen him internally but the enemies of the West will be confirmed that nothing has changed.

Besides, who in their right mind actually believes that just because Obama is president, Iran will not continue developing nuclear arms? That North Korea will end its blackmailing of the world with nukes and long-range missiles? That China will halt the build-up of force projection capabilities, threatening Taiwan and expanding its sphere of influence into South Asia and the Indian Ocean? That Hamas and Hezbollah will stop hating and launching attacks against Israel? That the genocide in Sudan will stop? That African leaders will pull themselves together and finally deal with Mugabe? That Hugo Chavez will suddenly come to his senses and give up his dream of becoming a dictator for life?

Pull yourselves together people.

Hamas supporters envoke Hitler in fight against Israel

2009-01-24T13:59:00.000-08:00

2009-01-10

”Heil Hitler”, ”we want to kill all Jews”, ”give us some Jews”, ”down, down, Denmark”, “down, down, democracy” were among the slogans chanted at this Palestinian pro-Hamas, anti-Israel demonstration in central Copenhagen. Watch the footage below. Demonstration also attended by a handful of left-wingers.

Imagine if a pro-Israeli demonstration had chanted "kill all Palestinians"... There would have been no end to the media-hysteria.

Saudi norms make way into Holland

2009-01-22T06:57:00.000-08:00

Wall Street Journal op-ed (quoted in full):

JANUARY 22, 2009

Silencing Islam's Critics

A Dutch court imports Saudi blasphemy norms to Europe.

The latest twist in the clash between Western values and the Muslim world took place yesterday in the Netherlands, where a court ordered the prosecution of lawmaker and provocateur Geert Wilders for inciting violence. The Dutch MP and leader of the Freedom Party, which opposes Muslim immigration into Holland, will stand trial soon for his harsh criticism of Islam.

Mr. Wilders made world news last year with the short film "Fitna." In the 15-minute video, he juxtaposes Koranic verses calling for jihad with clips of Islamic hate preachers and terror attacks. He has compared the Koran to Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and urged Muslims to tear out "hate-filled" verses from their scripture. This is a frontal assault on Islam -- but, as Mr. Wilders points out, he's targeting the religion, not its followers. "Fitna," in fact, sparked a refreshing debate between moderate Muslims and non-Muslims in the Netherlands, and beyond.

There are of course limits to free speech, such as calls for violence. But one doesn't need to agree with Mr. Wilders to acknowledge that he hasn't crossed that line. Some Muslims say they are outraged by his statements. But if freedom of speech means anything, it means the freedom of controversial speech. Consensus views need no protection.

This is exactly what Dutch prosecutors said in June when they rejected the complaints against Mr. Wilders. "That comments are hurtful and offensive for a large number of Muslims does not mean that they are punishable," the prosecutors said in a statement. "Freedom of expression fulfills an essential role in public debate in a democratic society. That means that offensive comments can be made in a political debate."

The court yesterday overruled this decision, arguing that the lawmaker should be prosecuted for "inciting hatred and discrimination" and also "for insulting Muslim worshippers because of comparisons between Islam and Nazism." This is no small victory for Islamic regimes seeking to export their censorship laws to wherever Muslims reside. But the successful integration of Muslims in Europe will require that immigrants adapt to Western norms, not vice versa. Limiting the Dutch debate of Islam to standards acceptable in, say, Saudi Arabia, will only shore up support for Mr. Wilders's argument that Muslim immigration is eroding traditional Dutch liberties.

First Annual CEPOS Conference on Human Rights

2008-12-05T08:45:00.000-08:00

Fresh back from the first annual CEPOS conference on human rights I just want to upload some pictures from the event where I duly noted that the introductory programme contained quotes from a report I had supplied chief legal officer Jacob Mchangama with a few days ago.
The topic: Should the UN continue to be liberal democracies primary forum for the protection and propagation of human rights?
Occasion: OIC's full frontal attack on freedom of speech at the Human Rights Council.

(Above) Line Barfod and Søren Pind

(Above: Morten Messerschmidt and Naser Khader)

Key note speakers:

Anne Bayefski. Senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Former member of the Canadian delegation to the UN General Assembly and Human Rights Commission. Senior editor at the Eye on the UN

Morten Kjærum (In the picture behind MP Naser Khader:

Founder of the Danish Center for Human Rights (now, Danish Institute for Human Rights ) and current head of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights.

Also present in the panel debates were MP Morten Messerschmidt (Danish People’s Party), MP Naser Khader (Liberal Alliance), MP Line Barfod (Red-Green Alliance) and MP Søren Pind (Liberal Party).

The talks did not give a lot of new information but I was relieved to experience the seriousness with which everyone except Morten Kjærum and Line Barfod discussed the idea of creating a union/club/whatever of democracies around the world. I don’t know why John Mcain is always mentioned in this context. To my knowledge he did not come up with the idea but is just another –albeit prominent - supporter of it.

Coming from the far left of the political spectrum it was not surprising that Line Barfod is of the opinion that the primary objective of any international body is to talk. Irrespective of what the subject of the conversation is or who the partners are or what else is going on – so long as we keep talking there is hope. And THAT is what is important, she thinks. Although a strong supporter for democracy as such, she was not too happy about supporting a club for democracies if that could in any way be construed as rain on UN’s parade. Yay for the dictators’ talking club.

In the minds of Line Barfod's tree-hugging segment of the political spectrum it is of the highest importance to show solidarity with the oppressed masses of the world by not speaking too harshly to their oppressors – lest they take it out on the innocent populace.

Morten Kjærum is deeply involved with, not to speak of employed by, the current system providing a forum and funding for the world’s dictators to come and give lectures on racism and how the truth hurts religious feelings. He could hardly be expected to support the idea of creating a competitor to the UN. Irrespective of the fact that no one proposed leaving the UN altogether he felt that creating a forum for the world’s democracies would be like ‘leaving the oppressed behind’.

Morten Kjærum chose to base his optimism and support for the current UN system on the fact that ‘at least human rights conditions are better in many parts of the world today than they were 60 years ago’. Secondly he placed a lot of emphasis on the fact that ‘things are moving, an office has been established and the ICC is in place’.

I always did think that the Danish Institute for Human Rights was living in fantasy-land. Morten Kjærum’s lofty speech, which did not even touch on the question on today’s programme: what to do in the face of OIC’s attack on freedom of speech, just confirmed my opinion. Who cares if things ‘are moving’ if the reality is that it is the OIC pushing and succeeding with the agenda that religions (read: Islam) must have rights and that they most come before individuals’ rights. If dictatorships manage time and time again to use the UN body to attack their enemies and shelter each other from criticism. A human rights body that can put Libya in the chairman’s seat is not worth spending time on.

Morten Kjærum was disappointed by the fact that the West today seems to have no human rights’ agenda. At least, he said, the rest of the world did. Especially the US’ passivity was disappointing.

As Anne Bayefsky rightly pointed out that the West is voted down time and again on anything that matters. Any support by the US for a proposal is the kiss of death because everyone else will vote against it just for the heck of it. Secondly, she said that the only way we are ‘turning our backs on the oppressed’ is by giving legitimacy to dictators in forums such as the UN.

The Danish Institute for Human Rights had compromised themselves in my eyes long ago. Today that opinion was confirmed.

Showtime for Turkey

2008-11-28T13:04:00.001-08:00

In relation to my previous post I want to point out an important issue playing out in the shadow of that conflict.
Turkey is trying to gain membership to the EU using among other arguments the claim that, as a member, Turkey would be in a better position to act as a mediator between the West and the Islamic countries.
I am personally strongly against Turkey's membership but if there is ONE place where Turkey actually could prove that there is a shadow of truth in their claim then this mess with the Durban II conference is it. Because:

Turkey is a member of OIC
Turkey is a member of the Preparatory Committee for the Durban Review Conference.
Turkey was not prominent in the Mohammed Cartoon crisis - that could be both good and bad.
Turkey is traditionally good friends and allies with Israel, which countries such as Iran and Libya plans to bash at Durban II.

I have had Google track any news on the combination of "Turkey" and "Durban" these last many weeks in order to catch any important article that might pop up on the subject but not much has actually turned up.
Two relevant links, however, speak in favour of Turkey:

#1: September 18th at the Human Rights Council the Turkish ambassador made a decidedly moderate comment:

ASLIGUL UGDUL (Turkey) said that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was at the core of all other problems in the region. All were aware that a durable peace in the Middle East would no be possible without solving that conflict. The international community had demonstrated a strong will in support of the Annapolis peace process. The success of the resumed process would largely depend on the parties acting with common sense and moderation. Turkey welcomed the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and the recent release of Palestinian detainees by Israel. That constituted an important step in building confidence between the parties. The ongoing talks had to continue, until they produced a concrete outcome.

#2: Late US senator Tom Lantos who was active in the first Durban
conference, describes his diplomatic working behind the scenes:

I continued my bilateral negotiations with the key OIC ambassadors, representing Pakistan, Algeria, and Turkey. These meetings left me in a very hopeful mood. It was clear that the Islamic countries were prepared to relent and were searching for a way to save face. All three of the OIC ambassadors I met with assured me that they were trying to convince the radical elements of their caucus to abandon the attempt to attack Israel by name, and all three asked me for help in shoring up the other two for their ongoing battle with the hard-line countries such as Syria, Iraq, Libya, Iran, and the Palestinians.

Firstly, Tom Lantos' comment above concerns the first Durban Conference in 2001 and not the coming. Secondly, he later finds out his estimation of the interests of Pakistan are blatantly wrong. Turkey's effort aside - whatever they might have been - Durban I still fell into an anti-American, anti-Israeli circus.

I don't see what different and strengthened position vis-a-vis Islamism Turkey could obtain by becoming a member of EU.
Besides, the union is already heavily weighed down by too many countries wanting it their way. EU is incapable of acting in unison against anything on the world stage. Russia routinely plays EU member against member to get an edge in negotiations. And then we haven't even touched on the massive security issues, historic hatred and cultural and religious differences between Europe and Turkey. Looking at the political culture in Turkey I suspect EU would have another Poland on its hands: Inflated image of self and not afraid to derail any process if there is something in it for them.
Turkey can get a preferential trading partner agreement and no more.

If Turkey was smart then they would launch a public diplomacy campaign in EU that Turkey was helping to reign in the insane islamists in OIC.
I bet they could manage such a campaign if they wanted to but I don't believe they have the clout to actually change anything with the OIC.

BTW go ahead and read Tom Lantos' entire account. Exciting stuff.

OIC takes fight against freedom of speech to the UN

2008-11-28T11:40:00.000-08:00

The Durban Review Conference a.k.a. Durban II may not have created many headlines outside the blogosphere and NGO web-sites yet but represents in fact one of the most important battlegrounds in the ongoing facedown between Western style democracy and freedom on one side and Islam plus various other kinds of fascism on the other. This time the Islamists have hijacked the UN to further their cause.

Previous optimism by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) was most likely premature. On the 25th of November 2008 the UN General Assembly passed (85 votes in favour to 50 against, with 42 abstentions) a (document A/C.3/63/L.22/Rev.1) a draft resolution on combating defamation of religions, which will form the basis of the votes at the Durban II conference in April 2009.

Quotes from the draft resolution:

Stressing that defamation of religions is a serious affront to human dignity leading to the restriction of the freedom of religion of their adherents and incitement to religious hatred and violence,

Stressing also the need to effectively combat defamation of all religions and incitement to religious hatred, against Islam and Muslims in particular,

Following the lack of tangible success from the use of violence in the recent Mohammed cartoon crisis the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) vowed to take the legal path instead. The problem, from their point of view, is that the Declaration of Human Rights protects humans and not ideas, ideologies or religions as such. Any attempt to launch a case at the European Court of Human Rights against publishers of cartoons or other material deemed offensive to the mullahs would therefore fail blatantly. Not content with having from time to time to accept criticism the OIC then decided to change the human rights and protect religious followers from such insolence as people actually disagreeing with them

The vehicle for this campaign is Durban II.

The title of the draft resolution being prepared for the conference is “Combating defamation of religions” and the aim is to limit freedom of speech when it comes to criticism of religion. The Durban Review Conference is nominally aimed at combating racism but the preparatory committee, chaired by Libya and dominated by Iran, Syria and Egypt, insists on squeezing criticism of religion into this category and thereby equating it with racism.

That is of course totally unacceptable, illogical and, not to speak of, harmful to the progress of humanity against ignorance and tyranny.

Looking at the voting patterns in the UN this nonsense agenda looks, however, dead set on being approved by a majority come April 2009 when Durban II is held in Geneva, Switzerland. The city of Durban, South Africa, turned down the offer of holding the review conference because the first conference had turned into such an enormous Jew-bashing hate fest. Not surprisingly Israel has already announced that it will boycott Durban II.

Most likely influenced by the findings of these government sponsored reports: Canada and the United Nations Human Rights Council: A Time for Serious Re-Evaluation and Canada and the United Nations Human Rights Council – At the Crossroads, Canada has also opted to boycott Durban II.

Strong voices in the Danish debate have tried to make the foreign minister do the same. By attending the meetings he risks legitimating a process and a decision that goes against all the Denmark stands for. On the other hand, by not going he surrenders the process completely to the forces working against Western civilisation. Danish foreign minister Per Stig Møller (cons.) has for the time being opted for a more idealistic road than the Canadians and decided to attend the preparatory meetings to at least attempt to let his voice weigh in on the side of reason. Importantly, he has kept the door open for a chance to leave the proceedings if they begin to appear hopeless.

Reading the above Canadian reports that foreign ministerial ‘if’ is more accurately a ‘when’ the proceedings begin to appear hopeless. Here are a few quotes from the reports:

"Witnesses stated that since the Human Rights Council first met, these three overlapping groupings of states (the League of Arab States, the Non-Aligned Movement and the OIC) have worked together to sponsor and adopt resolutions serving their interests – often in direct opposition to Canada and other like-minded countries. Vote after vote can be traced with a pattern of 33 to 12 or 34 to 11, with Canada voting against the resolution. Paul Heinbecker noted that the voting patterns can to some extent be explained by the OIC, Non-Aligned Movement, and Arab League’s perception of a struggle against the hegemonic developed world. He said that there is a solidarity that people will maintain, even in the face of that which is manifestly not in their interest or even manifestly wrong. The larger value, for a lot of countries, is to stick together because they feel weak and powerless. They largely are, but… they seem to feel that if they can stick together, they at least have some kind of clout vis-à-vis the United States and the other powerful countries.”

“The Committee is concerned that, faced with these bloc politics, there is little that human rights defenders such as Canada can currently do on the Human Rights Council. The Western Europe and other states group of members is effectively outnumbered. Government officials noted that Canada is missing many of its natural allies on the Council, such as Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.“

A report by the European Council on Foreign Relations comes to the same conclusion: EU and the West are loosing the votes in not only the UN Human Rights council but the UN as a whole:

“In the 1990s, the EU enjoyed up to 72% support on human rights issues in the UN General Assembly. In the last two Assembly sessions, the comparable percentages have been 48 and 55%. This decline is overshadowed by a leap in support for Chinese positions in the same votes from under 50% in the later 1990s to 74% in 2007-8. Russia has enjoyed a comparable leap in support. The trend away from the Europeans is markedly worse on the new Human Rights Council (HRC) where EU positions have been defeated in over half the votes.”

“(EU) has also suffered a rift with the 56 members of the OIC and there are now only three Muslim-majority states among the EU’s human rights allies (Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Turkey). This reflects not only disputes over the Middle East, but a fundamental clash over cultural and religious values.”

“The EU’s diminishing influence over the last decade is all the more surprising given the amount of money that it invests in multilateral processes, and its strong representation within the UN system. EU states finance the lion’s share of the UN budget and are collectively the world’s biggest aid donor, committed to disbursing $80 billion a year by 2010. The fact that the EU holds four or five seats on the Security Council at any given time should be another source of leverage.”

At the meeting in the General Assembly 25^th of November where the draft resolution on Combating Defamation of Religion was passed, France speaking on behalf of EU said it “was necessary to make distinctions between incitement to religious hatred and the right to discuss or criticize religion, adding that only the former should be forbidden. He noted that the recent report of the Special Rapporteur on racism and related intolerance had recommended dealing with the concept of defamation of religion through the establishment of legal norms to combat the incitement to religious hatred. There was no need for additional norms on the question. In situations where fundamental rights were in conflict, only courts could establish the limits. That question could not be tackled in the political field, but in the legal field. He also could not accept the idea of defamation of religion being integrated into the human rights framework. International human rights law should be aimed at protecting people in exercising their freedom of religion, not in protecting religions, as such. He believed the resolution could be used to justify arbitrary decisions against religious minorities, for instance, by not allowing them to exercise their right to religion or belief. He could not support the resolution and would vote against it.”

The representative of the United States “called on all Member States to reaffirm their belief in the freedom of expression and to call into account those that misused General Assembly resolutions to harass individuals who were seeking to express their opinions and beliefs. He also objected to the text’s way of conflating racism and racial discrimination. The language appeared to suggest that, like race, one’s religion was a characteristic that one could not change, which was in direct conflict to Article 18 of the Universal Declaration, which said that individuals had a right to change and choose their religion, and to manifest their beliefs through its teaching, practice and observance, or to choose not to practice a religion at all. It was unhelpful and incorrect to suggest that race and religion were the same. He would vote no on the draft.”

The draft was then approved.

James P. Cain misunderstands lessons from American history

2008-11-19T08:21:00.000-08:00

Soon to be former American ambassador to Denmark James P. Cain was recently (2008, 12th Nov.) interviewed by late night debate programme DR2 Deadline. Among other issues the interview revolved around his views on integration and what the American experience could teach Denmark.

Former Danish foreign minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen saw the interview and agrees with Mr. Cain. I don’t.

Speaking of the Mohammed cartoons and the fact that large parts of Danish society insist on being able to criticize an ideology such as political Islam, he said that any serious newspaper in the States would be unlikely to publish the cartoons. The reason for this, he said, was that at some point in American history the Americans decided that it was more important to maintain a “stable, harmonious and diverse society”. (BTW, Chinese leader Hu Jintao uses the term “stable and harmonious society” in the same way as Cain does here: as an excuse to clamp down on criticism)

James P. Cain says that America has to some extent “compromised the faith in freedom of speech and a free press in favour of respect, order and security in society. If that means not going out you way not to insult someone or incite someone for no reason then most media and most Americans would not (have printed the cartoons).“

First of all, whether the cartoons were “for no reason” at all or not is a different discussion and I happen to think that there was plenty of good reasons to publish them.

Secondly, although he acknowledges that the experience he is talking about is derived from problems with race and the current are not, he still thinks we can and should transfer the conclusions from dealing with race to the present ideological conflict.

American media and society were right to stop criticizing people for their race. Race is not important to other people besides the individual and has no real effect on the society at large. Taking race as an issue out of the debate basically removes the problem and allows blacks to integrate into society as they are.

The problems lately (esp. exposed by the Mohammed cartoons) are not about race but about politics, culture, and religion. In other word, aspects that do have a wider impact on society at large.

I don’t think American media are holding back from criticizing people over their political opinions and that is the way it should be. But religion is off limits? When religion acts as and feeds politics there is every reason to point it out and criticize that as well.

In the interview Cain draws on the American experience of the racial riots and says that back then it was young men who did not feel part of society and then proceeded to attack it in order to gain freedom to exercise their political rights. The same thing is happening today where young people who feel disenfranchised and alienated become terrorists, he says.

His conclusion is therefore to apply the same tool: Stop singling out the troublemakers and allow them a place in society.

I think that in a time where Muslims and no one else are killing other people in order to gain political rights, it would be foolish not to point out that fact.

Secondly: the political rights that the blacks fought for were ones such as freedom from slavery and the right to sit down in a bus even if a white man steps in. Hardly anything to disagree about.

Muslims are fighting for the right to marry off their daughters without her consent or the right to stone homosexuals? Are we just going to let that slide?

Muslims and the sort are welcome to become a part of Danish society. How you do that is by contributing to it. Fighting for a place for Pakistani tribal norms in Denmark or setting fire to cars because not every one here thinks Mohammed was the greatest man ever is not contributing to society.

Some may think that they have a right not to be offended - but they are wrong. Some may think that ideas have rights and it is their place to fight for them. Well, ideas do not have rights and if they choose to fight for whatever idea they like here in Denmark then they are going to be told an honest opinion.

For foreigners to feel like a part of this society they first have to understand it and then want to feel part of it. Parallel societies with opposite norms are simply way of keeping conflict out of sight – not resolving it.

James P. Cain and Uffe Ellemann-Jensen have failed in convincing me that certain ideologies, groups, forces, organisations, or religions should be exempt from criticism.

Especially the fact that Uffe Ellemann-Jensen holds this opinion continues to surprise me. All through his career he had a clear, informed and tough opinion on what to do with the Soviet Union and now the Russian regime. No one thinks that being tough on Communism caused groups like Rote Armée Fraktion or the Red Brigades to take up arms. That would be just stupid.

OIC priorities

2008-03-29T08:43:00.000-07:00

Islam is under attack, we hear and OIC, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, is coming to the rescue. Jihadwatch takes a look at the priorities of OIC: Unfortunately the threats that OIC sees are not the sort of violent extremist "hijackers" of the "religion of peace" who perpetrated 9-11, 7-7, etc. but rather "political cartoonists and bigots".
The real offense in their eyes is apparently that it is hard to take them seriously.

Quotes from the video:

Muslims are being targeted by a campaign of defamation, denigration, stereotyping, intolerance and discrimination,” explained Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the OIC’s secretary general.

AP reported that OIC “delegates were given a voluminous report by the OIC that recorded anti-Islamic speech and actions from around the world. The report concludes that Islam is under attack and that a defense must be mounted.” (…)

In response, the OIC is planning to create a “legal instrument” to combat criticism of Islam. “Islamophobia,” Ihsanoglu declared, “cannot be dealt with only through cultural activities but (through) a robust political engagement.” (…)

Once you declare one group off-limits for critical examination or declare that these people must at all costs not be offended, or that if they are they’re perfectly within their rights to stone, or lash, or imprison, or kill the offender, then you have destroyed free speech. In a free society, people with differing opinions live together in harmony, agreeing not to kill one another if their neighbor’s opinions offend them. (…)

This is especially true since Islamic spokesmen brand as offensive to Islam any inquiry into the use of Islamic teachings by the jihadists. (…)

The upshot of this is that even reporting accurately about the teachings of Islam that jihadists use to justify violence, as Mark Steyn did when he ran afoul of Muslim leaders in Canada, will be branded hate speech that is offensive to Muslims.

That’s why all free people should oppose the OIC’s legal initiative. Not only does it threaten the foundations of Western society, but as it would render us unable to analyze it, it is an attempt to leave us defenseless against the jihad threat.

Straight talk

2008-03-29T07:15:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, Pat Condell.

Slow creeping death of universal human rights

2008-03-28T15:29:00.000-07:00

I have written about them before and once again does the improbably named IHEU (International Humanist and Ethical Union) impress me with a poignant and ominous report on the poor state of the UN’s work for human rights in the face of a majority of Islamic member states that work within the system to establish the dominance of their religion.

IHEU's own short explanation can be read here and I definitely recommend going there but Reuters actually does a better job of boiling the issue down to its core in a short and easy-to-read text, which I quote in full below:

Islamic states seek world freedom curbs-humanists

Wed 12 Mar 2008, 18:53 GMT

By Robert Evans

GENEVA, March 12 (Reuters) - Islamic states are bidding to use the United Nations to limit freedom of expression and belief around the world, the global humanist body IHEU told the U.N.'s Human Rights Council on Wednesday.

In a statement submitted to the 48-nation Council, the IHEU said the 57 members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) were also aiming to undermine the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

"The Islamic states see human rights exclusively in Islamic terms, and by sheer weight of numbers this view is becoming dominant within the U.N. system. The implications for the universality of human rights are ominous," it said.

The statement from the IHEU, the International Humanist and Ethical Union, was issued as the U.N.'s special investigator on freedom of opinion and expression argued in a report that religions had no special protection under human rights law.

Ambeyi Ligabo, a Kenyan jurist, said in a report to the Council limitations on freedom of expression in international rights pacts "are not designed to protect belief systems from external or internal criticism."

MOUNTING SUCCESS

But this argument is rejected by Islamic states, who say outright criticism -- and especially lampooning -- of religion violates the rights of believers to enjoy respect.

The IHEU statement and Ligabo's report came against the background of mounting success by the OIC, currently holding a summit in Dakar, in achieving passage of U.N. resolutions against "defamation of religions."

Although several such resolutions have been adopted by the two-year-old Council and its predecessor since 1999, in December the U.N.'s General Assembly easily passed a similar one for the first time over mainly Western and Latin American opposition.

The OIC -- backed by allies in Africa and by Russia and Cuba -- has been pushing for stronger resolutions on "defamation" since a global controversy arose two years ago over cartoons in a Danish newspaper which Muslims say insult their religion.

The "defamation" issue has become especially sensitive this year as the U.N. prepares to celebrate in the autumn the 50th anniversary of the 1948 Universal Declaration, long seen as the bedrock of international human rights law and practice.

The OIC has been actively promoting its own 1990 Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, which it argues is complementary to the Universal Declaration but which critics like the IHEU say negate it in many areas.

Humanists, who include believers of many faiths supporting separation of religion and state as well as atheists and agnostics, say the "defamation" drive is part of an effort to extend the Cairo declaration to the international sphere.

The IHEU statement argued the December General Assembly resolution means states "may now legislate against any show of disrespect for religion, however they may choose to define 'disrespect'."

© Reuters 2008. All Rights Reserved.

I want to work for this organization.

Ellemann-Jensen and democracy

2008-03-24T05:18:00.000-07:00

Former Foreign Minister and contestant to be Prime Minister of Denmark Uffe Elleman Jensen (Lib.) has been an out-spoken critic of the Mohammed cartoons from the beginning. In a recent post on his blog on major Danish daily Berlingske Tidende's web-site he asks who benefits, Cui Bono, from the publishing of the Mohammed Cartoons and answers himself that since the Taleban are using the cartoons to recruit we should think again before publishing something like that again. Furthermore, because there was no special reason to print the cartoons and the terrorists seem to gain from them, Jyllandsposten was wrong to print them in the first place and the entire Danish press was even more wrong to print them after a plot by radical Islamists to kill Kurt Westergaard, the creator of the bomb-in-turban cartoon, was exposed. So goes his argument.

I used to have the greatest respect for this man but his arguments simply don’t hold water in this case.

First of all, the fact that some idiot may abuse your creation after you put it out in the public is no argument for not putting it out there in the first place. Think of cars, guns, medicine and kitchen utensils. All of which can be used to harm yourself and others and still those reckless producers keep churning out forks when they know that some child is just going to stab himself in the eye first chance he gets. Get the irony?

Second point that “there was no reason to print the cartoons”: well, first of all the press does not need a special reason to print something. That is the whole idea of not having censorship: the press is free to judge what to print without prior acceptance from someone else. Read UN Charter of Human Rights article 19 if you are in doubt. (After printing, the press is of course subject to the courts’ decisions on points such as defamation or disclosure of state secrets but not before). The whole industry of gossip magazines would have a hard time if relevance had anything to do with what was allowed in the press.

The idea that there was no special reason to print the cartoons may also be disputed by trends visible in i.e. the killing of film maker Theo van Gogh, threats against Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Rushdie and others. The sheer fact that the cartoons elicited such an enormous response calling for obeisance to the Islamic taboo on images of the prophet also makes it somewhat difficult in my mind to deny that there is and was a movement towards establishing defamation as a trump-all argument. It was exactly this movement that the cartoons wanted to and did in fact bring into the light. No reason to print the cartoons? I beg to differ.

Mr. Ellemann-Jensen has been active in responding to a wealth of comments on his blog and in one such response he writes that (my translation):

“I think that Danish democracy is threatened from the inside if we do not understand that a stubborn insisting on own values – without understanding that other may perceive things differently – is a threat against democracy.”

(The grammar is a little off but that is how he put in himself).

So by giving into anti-democratic forces we are in fact protecting democracy? By insisting on keeping democracy the way we know works well, we are actually trying to abolish democracy?

I’m sorry but that just doesn’t make sense.

His point is probably that democracy is supposed to let everyone be heard and then move towards consensus. Well, the Muslims have been heard. They have made their point. Democracy has worked thus far but this conversation is a two way deal and they do not get to write the conclusion just like that.

Since their idea that religion is above freedom of speech is directly opposed to the idea of democracy, no compromise can be made without compromising democracy itself. I happen to put democracy before religion and I am therefore unable to accept any form of compromise that gives authority to religious taboos.

Freedom of speech is an absolute cornerstone of democracy and any kind of censorship (religious or otherwise) is a threat to a free society.

Mr. Ellemann-Jensen who was also an ardent critic of the Soviet Union should know better than to give into anti-democratic demands.

More irony

2008-03-08T17:12:00.000-08:00

I know that not a soul is going to actually read this but I just need to get it off my heart.

The second round of the Mohammad cartoon crisis is sort of rolling and I just happened to watch a round of the Doha Debates on BBC World (March 8th) where the otherwise intelligently sounding ex-islamist Ed Husain had this argument concerning the cartoons:

Jyllandsposten turned down cartoons of Jesus. Therefore the Mohammed cartoons were inflammatory.

What does that have to do with anything?

If I can find a cartoon of Jesus published by Jyllandsposten, does that mean they were not inflammatory? If I can find two cartoons is it then alright to publish two cartoons of Mohammad? What is the connection?

Whether they published 20 cartoons of 20 prophets or none at all is beside the point: Islamic taboos have no jurisdiction in Denmark. No person, living or dead, religious idol or atheist scientist, is safe from criticism. The job of the press is to point out problems in the real world (which old religious texts do not get to identify) and that is what they did with the cartoons: there is a real problem with Islamic extremism in this world.

The irony of this is that the otherwise intelligent Ed Husain had come to the Doha Debates to argue that the Islamic world is not doing enough to combat Islamic extremism. I totally agree with him and so did 74 percent of the audience in Qatar.

Well the cartoons were simply pointing out that fact.

Stop the terrorists and there will be no need to draw Mohammed with any explosive devices what so ever.

Comments

2007-11-24T02:46:00.000-08:00

I can tell people are still checking out this page and if some one should happen to have a comment or two, I will automatically be notified by mail so please don't hold back.
It is always interesting to see reactions to what I have written.

Signing out.

2007-04-02T12:41:00.000-07:00

This blog is no longer active.

I simply don’t have the time to keep it up to a decent standard. Quite frankly I ought to erase the last posting for being too shoddy.

For those interested, here are my biggest achievements with this blog:

Mentioned in The Guardian Unlimited
Initial Google-rating of four.
At least three visits by American intelligence services.

Best piece imho: China and the environment

A quick run-through

2006-11-18T15:13:00.000-08:00

I haven’t written anything here for a very long time now. My situation has changed and I no longer have the time or energy to look through all those news sources.

I used to read a dozen blogs and newspapers every day. Partly because of this blog I then happened to get a job where I sit all day (or night) and write news summaries. Unfortunately it’s only local or national news. That means I spend seven hours of sifting through stories that are of no particular interest to me and when I get back home I’m just too tired to go through all the Asian stuff.

A shame really.

Also, 90% of the people who do happen to hit this site are looking for one of two things: 1) “Essay contest Japan” or “Kurara Chibana gallery”. Everyone is welcome. It's just that the overwhelming majority of these kinds of hits just aren’t particularly encouraging me to write more about aspects of society as I see them.

If I want my political commentary to be read then this medium is obviously not the right place. Or maybe I just don’t know how to use a blog correctly?

If I may catch up on my previous story on what the Chinese would do after UN resolution 1718 condemning North Korea’s nuclear test, I’ll do it quickly here: (old news, sorry) First China balked at doing anything at all but then agreed to pretend to try and check the northern border. The point is that no one can check if they are actually checking and the Chinese themselves made sure to point out that it was actually impossible to go through everything up there. Excuses, excuses. They specifically refused to take part in any naval regime. Beijing probably didn’t want to get into a situation where they would have to turn down a request by someone to stop and search a North Korean ship.

Japan has implemented the resolution and more. So far as I know no North Korean ship is allowed in a Japanese port at the moment. They have had some discussion over the legality of stopping and searching vessels in Japanese waters but I think they will manage somehow. (I’m not in a mood to go and check up on all this.)

When I’m too tired to read more than absolutely necessary I tend to choose news sources with a profile that fits my own observations. Today I happened to spend some time away from home and started reading a different newspaper than usual. It featured an essay by the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, that I just have to react to. The piece has previously featured in International Herald Tribune. Go read it.

The title, "Open Wide Europe’s Doors". The reason? “A critical part of the soft power of Europe lies in the continued process of enlargement”, he says.

The idea seems to be that expansion of EU is expanding peace and democracy. He then holds up the ten countries that recently joined EU as an example of why we should open the doors to Turkey. In fact those countries are right now slipping back into the political disorder they came from. Now that they don’t have to exert themselves any more to get into EU, the shine has gone considerably off the political and economical polish. What we did for European ideals by accepting the ten countries was more akin to bribing them while they pretended to care about ideals.

Accepting Rumania and Bulgaria is also a huge mistake. The two countries are more or less run by organised crime. And the only reason anyone can come up with, is that “we already promised them that they could join!” Blah. What a bunch of fucking nitwits we have as our negotiators.

Even more of a mistake would be to accept Turkey. For one thing, only a third of Turks actually want to become members. Secondly, their insistence that they actually belong in the European family is just ridiculous. Islam is one thing but the sheer hysteria and irrationality that is integral to Turkish public debate and politics is too much to handle for an EU that struggles hard to find common ground on anything as it is. Putin was polite enough to only make a fool of EU over the lack of unity in private at the latest summit in Finland.

Third, the security problem of extending EU’s borders to Iran and Syria is just overwhelming. They can't control the borders as it is. If EU takes away its border controls as well then the drug road from Afghanistan to Europa will be wide open. Not to mention what else follows in the likes of human traficking and terrorism (do I really need to mention that?).

Having Turkey sign on to some protocol won’t make EU any greater a player on the world stage either. No one listens to Turkey. The arabs don't trust them. Persians don't trust them. EU already can’t figure out where to put its feet. Why would making an even bigger mess of EU’s institutions give us more punch?

“Drawing big lines on big maps of the east of Europe risks becoming a dangerous process. We should know that such a process will have profound effects in those areas or nations that fear ending up on the other side of those lines.”

So we should accept them out of fear of their destructive potential?

If trouble outside our borders is dangerous what is the great idea of inviting it inside?

The historical neutrality of Sweden is not a courageous voice for philosophical pacifism but more of a cowardly refusal to speak out on what is what. Saying something clearly always carries the risk of someone disagreeing with you. If everyone joins EU that means we’ll all agree and be friends, right? Wrong. We need to draw some lines to explain to ourselves and others that we have some standards and values that not everyone can live up to. They are welcome to try but we are not going to finance it.

”I do believe that even more of Europe, in an even larger area, is perhaps the only way of meeting the new challenges now mounting.

But for that to happen, Europe must again believe in itself and in its mission.”

For that to happen we have to first of all agree on what we believe in. Islam does not fit into that category. Secondly we need to accept that the reason why other countries disagree with us is not that they are unenlightened or poor. They won’t change their minds if we just sit down and have a chat. Not even if we subsidise their farming.

That is why EU enlargement is not a critical part of any kind of lasting power. It only lasts as long as it takes to cash the agricultural subsidies check.

The strength of EU lies in our considerable economic wealth and a stability that affords us to go out in the trouble spots of the world and lend a hand.

If we invite trouble inside EU we put our own stability on the line and everybody ends up losing.

Ban-ki Moon will run UN into the ground

2006-10-09T08:02:00.000-07:00

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban-ki Moon is set to be become next General Secretary of UN.

He has previously worked as a foreign policy advisor to Korean premier minister, Roh Moo-hyun.

Roh has had one of the most pathetic, toothless and apologetic foreign policies imaginable and UN with mr. Moon as general secretary is therefore in danger of loosing even the last glimmer of importance attached to it.

Nuclear North Korea. Positioning by China, Japan, Korea

2006-10-09T06:08:00.000-07:00

In connection with

North Korea

’s testing of a nuclear bomb, three things I want to notice:

1) China’s reaction when the UN Security Council meets. Until now China’s attitude towards any proactive steps on UN’s behalf has been one of stalling or preventing. China has actively opposed any and all sanctions or even harsh language against countries like Iran or Sudan.

Now that China’s own ass and interests are on the line. Will they change their attitude? Will they agree to sanctions?

My guess is that they will agree to token sanctions. China still has to weigh the alternatives of a nuclear Korean peninsula and an actual collapse of the North Korean regime with the flood of refugees and economic chaos that will inevitably ensue. China can not, in fact, push too hard on North Korea.

A nuclear armed North Korea is, however, a blow to China’s prestige, security and credibility.

2) Japan. Will they or wont they work towards developing their own nuclear arsenal?

The smart money is on No. For one thing, Korea and China have talked the “threat” of “militaristic Japan” up to levels that are completely out of touch with reality by. Japan is very far from being either militaristic or a threat to anyone. This crisis poses an opportunity for Japan to show that fact to their neighbours. Just don’t count on them picking up on it.

With Koizumi now replaced by Shinzo Abe, maybe China and Korea will want to make reconciliatory or encouraging remarks to Japan over their policies. Who knows? Maybe the trees really do grow into heaven.

Spokesman of the Japanese Foreign Minister Tomohiko Taniguchi was on CNN an hour ago and clearly rejected the idea that Japan was looking to build a nuclear deterrent. The American nuclear umbrella did that job very well, he said. He also noted that if Japan should decide to change its mind, it would only take a matter of weeks to assemble a weapon.

I wonder if that remark isn’t going to keep popping up in the coming days. Just to let North Korea know that they have the resources.

3) South Korea has been as vague as usual.

“President Roh Moo-hyun said Monday that it will be difficult for South Korea to stick with its engagement policy towards North Korea”.

“We won't give up pursuing peaceful and dialogue-based settlements. Unlike in the past, however, we may not continue to be patient about whatever North Korea does.”

Link.

So Korea is thinking about halting food aid in return for nothing but threats of annihilation?

Good job! You tell’em Roh. Don’t let that bad man get away with teasing you like that.

Japan’s political opposition

2006-09-03T08:50:00.000-07:00

Koizumi’s tenure is about to end and its time to evaluate.

Japan Times’ interview with political commentator Minoru Morita attempts to cast a critical light on the period.

Japan’s economy is finally looking up; Japanese banks’ unprofitable loans have shrunk. If that is all to Koizumi’s honour I don’t know but he did manage to secure the return five abductees from North Korea.

On the other hand the state of foreign affairs is at a low. Relations with neighbouring states are bad to say the least. Japan’s bid at securing a permanent seat in the UN Security Council looks pretty improbable.

Along comes Mr. Morita to try and set things straight. With opposition like that no wonder LDP has managed to reign almost uninterrupted for the past 50 years.

His analysis of the state of the nation goes more or less to the tune of everything was better in the olden days - before the US came and ruined everything.

“(…)following World War II, under U.S. occupation, education based on bushi values was prohibited. Confucian education was also banned. Japanese leadership lost all theory of leadership.

Then, the introduction of market fundamentalism encouraged the crumbling of moral structure within Japan's elite."

So, more Confucianism in leadership would make everything alright then, would it? Moral strength is what makes a country successful? I see... Where did I hear that the last time… I’m thinking pre-war rhetoric here.

His diagnosis of Japan’s problem with falling birth-rates goes like this:

“Many LDP members believe that the declining birthrate is due to a reduction of barriers to women's participation in society or the quickened pace of gender equality -- that women are expanding their legal rights and thus holding back from motherhood.

This is a complete misunderstanding. The cause of the slowing birthrate is that people's livelihoods are more impoverished. Japanese citizens have suddenly become poorer. That, and the fact that Japanese youth are exceedingly unhappy in comparison with their parents' generation. Such people refuse to bear children because they believe their offspring will experience yet greater hardship and unhappiness. This is a more serious issue than just changing the law, or the Constitution, and hoping that people will give birth.”

Although I agree that the economic downturn and the pessimism caused by it has something to do with falling birth rates, I am convinced that Japanese women’s growing participation in the work market also has a part in it. I think Morita automatically wants to disagree with as many LDP members as possible and here he overlooks the fact that they are actually right.

The Japanese youth of today is more unhappy in comparison with their parent’s generation because women want to participate in the workplace but can’t. That is partly because there are less jobs and partly because of the cultural expectations towards both men and women.

Today Japanese women are no longer dependent on finding a husband for survival. Japanese men are, however, still expected to work 12 hours a day 6 days a week. Once a woman gives birth she is either laid off or expected to quit her job. Finding a fulltime job as a mother is next to impossible. Leaving your active life behind for the solitary life as a house wife is the direct road to the unhappiness Morita speaks about. Keeping women in the kitchen is not going to solve the problem.

He continues:

“Vast numbers of Japanese youth can't find stable work. Koizumi has given managers, the trustees of capital, complete freedom on the basis that it is what America has done, and that Japan must create an American-type society. I've been to the United States on several occasions, and I believe that such a perception of the U.S. is mistaken. The U.S. has a somewhat better situation: Labor unions there are more powerful; there is a sense of humanism.”

This is exactly the point of the “many LDP members” he so disagrees with. Stronger unions would cut down the working hours and thus give Japanese families more space and time to cure the “unhappiness” he defines as the main cause of falling birth rates.

“But Japan has fallen under the impression that American shareholder-led capitalism disregards the importance of the employee, and that to conform to a U.S.-based global standard must involve adopting such a system.”

Japan is perfectly capable of disregarding the employee (as a person with a life outside the workplace) without any inspiration from the US. That is after all what created Japan’s economical success up through the 60’s and 70’s.

In other words the unhappiness does not come from Koizumi misunderstanding American systems but from pushing Confucian style expectations onto women in a society that has moved on a long time ago. I even think that the humanism, which stronger unions would bring with them, goes against his Confucian ideal of management above.

I think Morita’s outlook is too narrow. The world is bigger that Japan and the US. I would like to invite Mr. Morita to Scandinavia for him to see what real powerful labour unions look like. And how “unhappiness” can be avoided even without Confucianism.

Global Islam

2006-09-03T03:51:00.000-07:00

The terrorists who planted the two bombs on trains in Germany last month have spoken out on what spurred them into action : the drawings of the prophet Mohammed in Jyllandsposten and the death of Zarqawi, evil mastermind extraordinaire.

Two incidents with which Germany has no connections what so ever. Are these two terrorists just particularly stupid? Even among terrorists in general? Well, they did manage to botch the timing mechanism on their bombs so I think it’s safe to say that they are probably not rocket scientists.

The logic, in their minds, is of course that their actions were just one more strike in the decadent heart of the West. Had they happened to live in France or Italy then they would have blown something up in those countries.

Another example of the Islamist logic of not differentiating and going straight for radical mass killing solution is this video of protesters outside the Danish Embassy in London after the Mohammed drawings:

No messages of “Please behave nicely” or “we are sad”, no! They go straight for the throat. “We want Danish blood”, “Burn, burn Denmark! Burn, burn Germany! Burn, burn France! Burn, burn Spain!”, “slay those who insult Islam!”, “Europe, your 9/11 is on its way”, “take lesson of Theo van Gogh”, UK, you will pay”, etc. The only message here is violence.

The German intelligence service estimates that about one percent of Muslims in Germany are radical enough to support Islamist groups like al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. I think the MI5 operates with a similar number.

What is it about violent radicalism and stupidity that so festers among Muslims?

Maybe one percent doesn’t sound like enough to criticise Islam as such but the sheer number of suicidal maniacs on the loose is certainly enough to make you worried. What is it that links all the suicidal maniacs together? They are all Muslims.

The Pew Global Attitudes Project reveals that 36% of German Muslims think that there is a conflict between living in a modern society and being a devout Muslim. 15 percent of British Muslims think that violence against civilian targets to defend Islam can be justified sometimes or often. 56 percent of the same don’t believe that Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks.

Quick thoughts on why noone blows themselves up in the name of Jesus

2006-08-22T14:16:00.000-07:00

Danish society gives you complete freedom of thought. A limited freedom of action and a limited freedom of expression (in case anyone should wonder). There is, in other words, a simple limitation in what you can do and what you cannot do.

Christianity, more specifically Protestantism, which our society is based on helps us make that distinction. In Christianity there is no compulsion to do this or that. Being a good Christian is a question of trusting Jesus and giving yourself over to God. Jesus was part god and so there is no expectation that we humans must go out and become like him. Although he was a role model in his actions, his being was essentially different from ours.

In Islam it is different. Islam compels the believer to act in a certain way in certain situations. Mohammed was a human and so a good Muslim will copy his actions in every way. There are also prohibitions and limitations in some areas in Islam but it is coupled with positive demands in other areas.

For the individual Muslim to know exactly what to do in a given situation often requires a great deal of interpretation and approximation to figure out what is the ideal. The life of Mohamed was complex and characterized by periods of both peace/reconciliation and aggressive expansion. The range goes all the way from going to visit the Jew next door who kept piling garbage on his front door step to killing entire tribes and raping their daughters.

There will always be idiots and radicals. The problem with Islam is that Muslim idiots and radicals can find compulsion and justification for just about anything (except eating pork) in their religion.

That adds a dimension to their actions that the IRA or ETA doesn’t have: the feeling of doing God’s work. Punishing the wicked. Cleansing an evil world. The feeling that you cannot loose.

The Islamist terrorists are often compared to the Japanese Kamikaze pilots during WWII.

Both groups were killing themselves for their respective gods and ethnic group.

When Japan was defeated emperor Hirohito denounced his divinity marking a definitive moment in Japanese history. Since then Japan has completely turned away from fascism and today there is no chance that suicide bombers will emerge once again from the land of the rising sun. (don’t believe what the CCP propaganda machine tells you)

Unfortunately there is no similar Muslim figure to renounce divinity or suffer defeat in a giant battle.

Kurara Chibana 2nd at Miss Universe

2006-07-24T05:25:00.000-07:00

Japan’s Kurara Chibana (24) came in second in yesterday’s Miss Universe contest held in Los Angeles, California.

Zuleyka Rivera (18) from Puerto Rico came in first.

Congratulations to both of them.

Photo gallery here.

Chinese numbers

2006-07-01T03:44:00.000-07:00

Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen marked the ninth anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the mainland by calling on all Hong Kong people to back the "One Country, Two Systems" concept,
says South China Morning Post today.

Wouldn’t it be an idea to call on Beijing to back the "One Country, Two Systems" concept?
As it is now it’s more "One Country, One and a Half Systems" concept.

Win a trip to Japan - essay contest

2006-06-12T15:30:00.000-07:00

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan invites young Europeans for a two-week study tour of Japan in 2 Groups to take place in October or November 2006. Applicants are expected to contribute to future Japan-European relations.
The object of the tour is, in the short term, to inspire an interest in Japan by touching upon many aspects of Japan (i.e. Japanese politics, economy, culture, society etc.). It is hoped that in the longer term, the applicants’ understanding of Japan will help to strengthen future ties between Japan and European countries.

Applicants are required to meet the following requirements:

(1) Nationals of the following countries:
Andorra (Application at Japanese Embassy in France), Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Cyprus (at Embassy in Greece), Denmark, Estonia, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein (at Embassy in Switzerland), Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta (at Embassy in Italy), Monaco (at Embassy in France), the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino (at Embassy in Italy), Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, the United Kingdom, EU*
* “EU applicants” are limited to fonctionnaires and stagiaires of the EU Institutions – European Commission, Council of the EU, European Parliament etc. - with the nationality of the 25 Member States and acceding countries under negotiation (Bulgaria & Romania)

(2) Aged 18-35 as of June 2006

(3) Able to communicate effectively in English

(4) Others
- Applicants must not have been in Japan before and should have no concrete plan to go there in the near future

- Applicants are expected to be flexible, sociable and well suited to group activities
for the Tour

(1) Duration (plan)
Group A & Group B: 2weeks in October or November

(2) Number of Participants
Total of 60 Persons in both of above groups combined

(3) Content of Study (plan)
(A) Observing cultural, economic and political aspects of Japan from both traditional and modern viewpoints through lectures, visits and learning experiences.
(B) Opinion exchange with Japanese youth.
(C) Extensive travel around the country.
(D) Stay with a host family.
(E) Participating in events of 2005 EU-Japan Year of People-to-People Exchanges

Applications should include a CV, covering letter and a short essay (1 side of A4, single spaced) in English on:

" Me and My Favourite Japanese Subculture (Pick one of your choice, e.g. Manga, Anime, J-Pop Music, J-Fashion, Sushi etc.) "

Applications are required to be sent to the Embassies/Consulates General of the country of which you are a national (even if you are currently residing in another country).

*“EU applicants” mentioned above are requested to send his/her application to the Mission of Japan to the European Union in Brussels.

Deadline! Applications are required to be sent in by 14th July 2006.

Fight corruption! Except here in Beijing...

2006-05-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

Once again Beijing wants to look like they taking a tough stance on corruption but backs down as soon as the solution involves loosening the CCP's grip on power.

A Taiwanese legislator who played an important role in exposing the scandals now afflicting the island's president, Chen Shiu-bian, has been forced to cancel a speech in Beijing on fighting corruption.

Chiu Yi, of the main opposition Kuomintang, said yesterday that senior officials pulled the plug on his talk about freedom of speech in Taiwan out of fear it could lead to a spate of corruption exposés on the mainland. (Quotes from the unlinkable South China Morning Post, May 29^th 2006)

The facts on the mainland are that, unlike in Taiwan, local officials are virtually free to line their own pockets with whatever they can get their hands on - unchecked by either courts, a working press or the party itself. . In China reporters risk ending up in jail if they report on corruption.

Corruption in China is systemic .

The first step away from that situation is to allow the press to report on irregularities, which is exactly what Mr. Chiu Yi planned to point out in his speech.

Actions speak louder than words and apparently Beijing values face-saving more than fighting against corruption does.

"I was going to speak about how my success in exposing scandals was due mainly to the freedom of speech we have in Taiwan," a disappointed Mr Chiu said in Beijing.

Mr Chiu's actions have led to him being dubbed a "national hero" on the mainland. When he arrived in Beijing on Saturday, Mr Chiu was mobbed by dozens of fans seeking his autograph.

Mainland media prominently reported the arrest of Dr Chao and some media even invited Mr Chiu to speak on the air from Taiwan about how he was able to expose the scandals linked to Mr Chen's family and the government.

Speaking in Beijing yesterday before he flew back to Taiwan, Mr Chiu said he did not think mainland authorities would tolerate people who persistently exposed government scandals.

"This is what makes Taiwan different from the mainland," he said, adding that regardless of how angry Taiwanese authorities were, he would still be free to expose any future scandals and the Taiwanese media would still be able to report on them.

This story has the smell of Beijing wanting to take a cheap shot at Taiwan and especially Chen Shui-bian. When it turned out that Chiu Yi wasn’t going to do any Taiwan-bashing for them, the story would in stead come back and reflect worse on Beijing for not having a realistic solution to the problem that they admit is there and growing.

Making fun of Mao is sacrilege?

2006-05-26T06:14:00.000-07:00

Even more liking to the Mohammed cartoon case than the protesters at MIT is the case of Chinese protesters at Massey University in New Zealand.

The front cover of student magazine, Chaff, at Massey University, which featured the late Mao Tse-tung in a dress drew a crowd of Chinese protesters who called the image blatant racism, demanded an apology and the remaining copies pulled out of circulation.

Just like the Muslims, the Chinese express personal frustrations and nationalistic chauvinism in attacking critics with religious fervour.

They take humour directed at their idol to be expressions of racism and personal affronts to them and their honour. At least the Chinese haven’t demanded the beheadings of Chaff’s chief editors yet…

Tianxiang Mao said it was common for Asian students to be lambasted with racial slurs when driving.

"People yell `F-ing Asians' when we are in the car driving down the road. I don't say anything. What can I do?"
(...)
UCOL student Xing Tang said Chaff staff are ignorant of Chinese culture.

"Chairman Mao is like Jesus to us," he said on the verge of tears.

"We pay $20,000 in fees and a Musa fee (which funds Chaff) and this is how we are treated."

Student Ronnie Cao likened the cover to the anti-Muslim cartoons.

"This is discrimination against us."

It will have a huge effect on New Zealand's reputation, Mr Cao said.

Brainwashing by either communist or theocratic totalitarianism apparently adds up to the same thing: No humour; lots of aggression; incessant calling of this and that as racism; skewed logic as in likening the world’s biggest mass murderer to Jesus Christ; trying to shut down the free press both at home and abroad. Where do they get it from?

More propaganda infused goodness from the twilight zone that is Chinese nationalism .

Chairman Mao is not simply regarded as the first Chairman of China. He is respected by every Chinese as Jesus respected by Christian. In some western countries, people respect him the Father of China. The respects are pure and were held seriously in last half century, which is expected to last for another century without any doubt. In some cases, the words, especially the photos of Chairman Mao is representing our highest national regards and prides that is part of our culture.

Images of Mao is the pride of your culture? Well, after Mao destroyed everything else in the Cultural Revolution, sadly I guess you don’t have too much to choose from, do you?

Just like the Middle East is a cultural and intellectual hole in the ground created by the mullahs.

Story through Foreign Dispatches.

Reply to Chinese protesters at MIT

2006-05-26T04:44:00.000-07:00

In continuation of my previous post on the Chinese protesters at MIT complaining over the history course Visualizing Cultures I would like to give you one reply that professor Peter Perdue at MIT wrote as a response.

Open Letter to Chinese Students at MIT from Peter C. Perdue(zz)

Open Letter to Chinese Students at MIT

Peter C. Perdue

April 28, 2006

Recently, a group of Chinese students at MIT have protested pictures of the Sino-Japanese war which were posted on the MIT web site as part of the research project “Visualizing Cultures” conducted by Professors John Dower and Shigeru Miyagawa. The protest has included critical email messages addressed to Prof. Miyagawa, group discussion with the faculty and members of the MIT administration, and a list of demands passed out at a meeting on April 26.

Even though the protests are so far only verbal, they include extremely abusive messages directed at distinguished scholars of the Institute and demands for the suppression of free academic research. I am writing to you collectively in response to these activities. I address my remarks primarily to the graduate students from the People’s Republic of China who have initiated these protests. I hasten to add that I am sure that not all the Chinese students at MIT approve of these activities, but I hope you will pay close attention to their implications.

You are some of the best and brightest young people of China, who have come to MIT in order to pursue education mainly in scientific and technological subjects with the leading researchers in the world. Many of you, I am sure, plan to return to China to use the skills you learn here to help China become a truly modern country. I respect your dedication to your studies and your deep concern for the honor of your country.

I have spent twenty-five years at MIT teaching East Asian history to Chinese and American students, trying to engage them in critical discussion of the complex relationships between China, Japan, and the world from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries. I have dedicated my professional life to improving mutual understanding of what are often very painful subjects on which people hold passionate views. But even the most painful events deserve reasoned, careful, and open discussion if we are to prevent future tragedies. Therefore, I am deeply disturbed by these recent protests, because they threaten to destroy possibilities for productive dialogue.

Although some of you may find my views difficult to accept, I must present them honestly and directly. I will add that I write only for myself and do not claim to
represent the opinions of Profs. Dower and Miyagawa or the MIT administration.

The images posted on the “Visualizing Cultures” website were not put there in order
to offend. They are an integral part of an ongoing research and educational project which includes lengthy textual explanations that accompany each picture. John and Shigeru have put many hours of their time over the past two years into making the meaning of these materials as clear as possible. They have very graciously expressed regret over the misinterpretation of this images, but they did nothing wrong in the first place.

This is not a case of unintentional insensitivity, but of deliberate misrepresentation. In historical interpretation, context is everything. Some students ripped one picture alone out of hundreds of pictures and accompanying textual explanation and broadcast it on the internet. This highly irresponsible act is what caused the uproar in the first place. Those who perpetrated this act have not expressed any remorse for the pain they have caused, nor do they seem to recognize the implications of their acts.

The picture they took has the caption “Illustration of the Decapitation of Violent Chinese Soldiers.” John Dower’s textual explanation paraphrases the Japanese writing on the image and analyzes it as follows:

“The subject itself, however, and the severed heads on the ground, made this an unusually frightful scene—Even today, over a century later, this contempt remains shocking. Simply as racial stereotyping alone, it was as disdainful of the Chinese as anything that can be found in anti-Oriental racism in the United States and Europe at the time —as if the process of Westernization had entailed, for Japanese, adopting the white man’s imagery while excluding themselves from it. This poisonous seed, already planted in violence in 1894-95, would burst into full atrocious flower four decades later, when the emperor’s soldiers and sailors once again launched war against China.”

John Dower explains very clearly that this is a racist, shocking image, that it mirrors Western racism against all Asians, and that it sowed the “poisonous seed” which led to the atrocious Japanese war in China. Anyone who read these words could not possibly mistake the image for an endorsement of Japanese imperialism.

Therefore I conclude that those who broadcast the image without its context had malicious motives. They intended to whip up anti-Japanese hatred in order to promote a political agenda. Since John Dower has been the most sensitive of all scholars of Asia to the pain of racism, the fact that they took his work as the tool of their project is especially despicable. There is no excuse for it.
Some of the students presented demands presented at the meeting on April 26 which are simply unacceptable by the ordinary standards of American academic life. They include: removing the website on Visualizing Cultures, apologizing to the Chinese community, canceling academic workshops scheduled as part of this research project, and revising the text and imagesto accord with the preferences of the students. Email messages from some MIT alumni have even called for Professors Dower and Miyagawa to be fired. In order to calm the situation, the MIT administration and Professors Dower and Shigeru have conceded some of these demands, while insisting on their own integrity. I respect their decision, but let me explain why, even though I understand your anger, I find these demands unacceptable.

MIT hires to its faculty only scholars of the highest caliber. When I was the head of the History Faculty, we hired John Dower after a national search indicated that he was the most outstanding scholar of Japanese history in the country. He has won many prizes to confirm that judgment. No one I know is more deeply committed to the empathetic understanding of the peoples of Asia than John Dower. Professor Miyagawa deserves equal respect.

You, despite your passion, are not specialists in East Asian history. Like any field in the sciences or engineering, historical study requires intensive concentration, acquisition of essential research skills, careful study of documents, and thoughtful, clear, writing. Those of you who think that you know the history of East Asian better than these distinguished scholars lack the authority to make this claim. No one so far has presented any evidence that the materials presented on the Visualizing Cultures are mistaken or biased. It is disrespectful of the dedication of serious scholars to make such emotional charges based on no evidence.

Contrary to the accusations of the protesters, the materials on “Visualizing Cultures” do not glorify Japanese imperialism. The visual images and the textual explanation describe and analyze the power of Japanese propaganda about the war. But to describe is not to condone. The text by John Dower makes it very clear that these images are shocking, racist, and sadistic. They did, however, have a powerful impact on the Japanese public at the time. We cannot ignore their power, but we must explain it. Suppression will not help us to understand them.

The American university is based on the fundamental principle of academic freedom. Scholars must be allowed to engage in whatever research activities they find most challenging in their professional fields. Their work is subject to the judgment of their peers in their discipline, and they must respond to careful, reasoned criticism from professional colleagues. Scholars also engage in open dialogue with students and the general public in order to promote public awareness of their research.
But ultimately, no one can tell them what to study, or demand that their work be suppressed.

The Sino-Japanese war indeed raises many crucial issues about East Asian history, and I would encourage you to explore them further. Consider the following paradox, for example: after its defeat by Japan, the Qing government of China sent thousands of Chinese students to Japan for advanced study, to the very country that had committed atrocities against it. In fact, the Qing began the foreign study program that has brought you students to the U.S. today. Why did it do so? Because the Qing rulers realized that China was backward and weak in the face of Western imperialism, and Japan had mastered crucial aspects of industrial production, military organization, and technological skill. Japan was much less alien to the Chinese than were the United States and Europe. Japan had borrowed the Chinese writing system for its own language, and both countries shared the common cultural heritages of Confucianism and Buddhism. The Chinese students in Japan picked up many of the key concepts of Western industrial nations through Japanese. Many of the most common Chinese modern political terms, like “minzhuzhuyi” (democracy), come from Japanese (minshushugi). But Japan had created the term “minshu”
from the classical Chinese terms for “people” (min) and “master (zhu).” This is just one illustration to show that the Chinese and Japanese peoples have been closely tied to each other for many centuries. The history of their relations cannot be reduced simply to a story of atrocities. To do so violates the historian’s responsibility to describe the entire truth of a complex relationship as best she can.

Ironically, Lu Xun, China’s greatest modern writer, faced a situation very similar to ours. While in Japan 1905 to study medicine, he saw a lantern slide depicting a Japanese soldier executing a Chinese “traitor.”Shocked by this brutality and by the failure of his fellow Chinese to respond to it, he resolved to become a writer in order to arouse his countrymen to resist oppression. His brilliant short stories and essays are not melodramatic expressions of anti-Japanese hatred. They are deeply insightful, biting comments on the character of the Chinese people themselves. Lu Xun turned his anger to productive purposes, for which he deserves honor.

You have a great responsibility as leading participants in China’s future. China faces
huge challenges in its effort to become a wealthy, strong, democratic, and open nation. You should study not only technical subjects but also the crucial questions of social and historical change that will determine China’s future. There are many outstanding faculty at MIT and other universities who will gladly support your goals. Please open your minds to critical awareness of these most difficult questions in a spirit of reasoned, open intellectual discourse, not one of narrow, self-centered indignation.

I wish you well,

Sincerely,

Peter C. Perdue

T.T. and Wei Fong Chao Professor of Asian Civilizations
Professor of History

Yasukuni causes 'unhappiness': Lee Kuan Yew

2006-05-23T12:44:00.000-07:00

Former Premier Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew tells Japanese Premier Minister Koizumi that his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo is causing “unhappiness in Asia” but economical relations will not sour because of it. Lee Kuan Yew was always one to favour financial arguments over all else.

"Mr Lee Kuan Yew told me that China is only applying psychological pressure through the Yasukuni problem, and that there is no change to the underlying foundation of Japan-China relations. I agree completely." Mr Koizumi is quoted today as saying in the unlinkable South China Morning Post.

Koizumi lays out the Lee’s statement as if there is no reason to criticise him for going to Yasukuni.

I agree with Lee that if it wasn’t for the Yasukuni issue, China and Korea would just find something else to complain about. It’s not like there is a lack of options in that department either.

I disagree, however, with Koizumi’s position that all is then fine and dandy.

Aside from the constitutional problems of an acting PM worshipping at a shrine, there is the point of ‘not giving them an excuse to complain when there are perfectly good ways to avoid it’. Yasukuni is bad choice of diplomacy when Japan is trying to gain a seat the UN Security Council.

Koizumi could choose to remember the war dead at the secular Tomb for Unidentified War Victims at Chidorigafuchi in Tokyo or at the Peace Park in Hiroshima. He could even build a new memorial site, which has been debated several times in the Japanese Diet and rejected.

Of course we know why he attends Yasukuni. Before he was elected PM for the first time in 2001, Koizumi promised that, in return for the votes of the War Veterans’ Organisation he would go to Yasukuni once a year for as long as he was in office. That’s why.

Unlike Mr Lee whom China probably considers firmly on their side on the Yasukuni issue, neither China not Korea was never any good at subtle diplomacy. I still do wish that they would turn it down a notch and thereby not force the next Japanese PM into choosing between honouring Koizumi’s policies and disowning him. I especially hope that China isn’t stupid enough to think that they can threaten a Japanese PM into not going to Yasukuni.

Abu Laban is staying

2006-05-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

Today the rumour that Abu Laban was leaving Denmark swept the country.

Imam Abu Laban is widely perceived as the person responsible for directing the anger of 1.3 billion crazed Muslims towards Denmark in the cartoon crisis.

Abu Laban is the leader of Islamisk Trossamfund (Society of the Islamic Faith), which was the driving force in collecting a portfolio of Jyllandsposten’s images of Muhammed plus a number of much worse images. They then arranged to meet a number of prominent Muslim leaders in several countries and managed to whip so much anger that several embassies were torched, dozens of people were killed in riots and half the world was on the other end for about a month and a half.

It was therefore with a sigh of relief or anticipation that most media reported that he was leaving. Unfortunately it later turned out to be false.

Exactly where the glitch happened I’m not sure but Mr. Laban himself vehemently denied on national television that he had any plans of leaving voluntarily.

My personal reaction to the rumour was: “good riddance” and “what the fuck is wrong with Islamisk Trossamfund?” Are they completely unable to react with anything but violence or threats thereof?

Spokesperson for Islamisk Trossamfund, Kasem Ahmad (KA), commented on the rumour that he feared there would be a ‘reaction’ against people like Naser Khader or Pia Kjærsgaard (the leader of right wing Danish People’s Party) if Abu Laban left.

“Someone will pay a large price for Abu Laban’s exit. Perhaps some people who are unable to control themselves will react." (Link)

To Ekstra Bladet he says:

"In the future it will be much easier to recruit terrorists for actions in Denmark. It will come back to haunt you. You are going to live with terror.

There is such a poisonous athmosphere againsts Muslims in Denmark at the moment. That's why it will not be difficult to find Danish Muslims who will sacrifice themselves voluntarily in acts of terror here in this country. I am sure many people will volunteer for the jobs.

EB: Are there people here in your mosque who will be willing to carry out terror when Abu Laban Leaves?

KA: Yes, most certainly. It has nothing particularly to do with Abu Laban's departure but the mood right now is so bad that it has to have consequences.”

What is *wrong* with these people? Why are they still in this country?

China and the environment

2006-05-11T05:26:00.000-07:00

A delegation of Danish business people, the Foreign Minister and the Minister of Environmental Matters are now on a tour round China to promote Danish environmentally friendly technologies.

A Chinese government official explained to the Danish press that China was “eager not to repeat the mistakes of Western countries by focusing on economic progress first and only waiting till *after* with cleaning up the environment”!

A little too late for that if you ask me. China's environment is already well on its way down the toilet. 25% of all Chinese have no access to clean drinking water so they might aswell drink from a toilet anyway.

According to the World Bank, China has 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities. All in all pollution is costing China an annual 8-12% of its $1.4 trillion GDP in direct damages. (link)

The fact that this tour came up is, however, is good news and shows that, despite what you might think when visiting China, there is not a *complete* disregard for the destruction of nature in the Middle Kingdom. A number of laws on pollution have been enacted. The last ten years or so, China’s GDP has risen faster than its energy consumption. Yet, in the same period the overall state of the environment has deteriorated none the less.

Contrary to what the Danish delegation might think and what the above quoted peppy government official seems to express, there is still a significant gap between good intentions and the allocation of funds to achieve that goal. The US Department of Commerce recommends offering low-cost solutions to the Chinese and even then to ask the Asian Development Bank or the World Bank to pay for it:

China is slowly beginning to enforce its comprehensive solid and hazardous waste law. But investment remains low, despite a dire need for hazardous waste treatment technologies. Low-cost resource recovery and refuse handling systems enjoy the best prospects.

Just breathing the air is putting your health at risk. Applying sunscreen is not necessary because the sun never peeps through the smog anyway.

China is the World’s 3rd largest consumer of coal and oil, but much of its energy producing and using equipment is both inefficient and highly polluting. As a result, China experiences severe urban air pollution that has a significant impact throughout the region.
The World Bank

When Beijing holds the 2008 Olympics I think the number of records set in outdoor events is going to be considerably less than when the games are held in countries that don’t rely on coal power for the brother part of its energy supplies.

Read this unsettling interview by Der Speigel with China’s Deputy Minister of the Environment.

Chinese scholars block historic images at MIT

2006-05-02T13:26:00.000-07:00

Muslims are not the only group of people so insecure of themselves and their history that they are unable to tolerate the depiction and study of events or facts, which they find embarrassing.

The Danish embassy in Tehran, Lebanon and Damascus has only just recently reopened to the public after they were shut down for a period during the Mohammed cartoon crisis.

In America protests from the Chinese community at MIT has forced the university to pull a web-site and offer an apology connected with the history course, Visualizing Cultures, because it used Japanese wartime propaganda posters as part of the class.

The image that angered students depicts Japanese soldiers lining up Chinese prisoners to be beheaded. It's an example of how the Japanese used propaganda to advance political agendas, but critics said that explanation was buried in an accompanying text.
Boston Globe

How much explanation to a depiction of beheadings do you need to figure out that the two professors behind the history course don’t endorse the act?

The images were treated both as art and as historical evidence to the political climate at the time but the Chinese complainers apparently want any treatment of the events to serve their own political purposes and come out as clear denunciations of Japan.

Personal insecurities disguised as scholarly critique.

The Japanese embassy in Beijing is still scarred from the anti-Japanese riots last year. If the CCP needed to create a distraction from one of the many domestic crises surely they could direct some more “justified anger of the people” towards the PRC’s external enemies and allow the mob to relieve some more stress over this issue aswell.

Story through the Duck Pond.

Sorting out the terrorists

2006-04-30T05:03:00.000-07:00

Further to my previous post about sorting out who is who among radical islamists CNN has an unusually candid analysis about a fundamental difference among groups that are otherwise routinely lumped together.

Although they all scream about forming Islamic governments and ruling by Sharia, groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are essentially locally based and focus most of their energy on local issues.

In contrast to that, groups like Al-Qaeda and the Salafists are out to make global revolution.

Differentiating terrorists according to their scope could help the West focus its War on Terror on the real dangerous segments.

Unfortunately it’s not as simple as just that.

Because Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood condemned the recent bombings in Sinai, the article categorises them as one of the less dangerous and locally focused groups along with Hamas and Hezbollah. On the other hand the article names Salafists as Global Revolutionaries. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt actually calls itself Salafist and it has extremely close connections to radicals in e.g. Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda’s chief ideologist, Ayman al Zawahiri also started his terrorist career in the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood's hardliners condemned Hamas for joining the democratic election that brought Hamas to power in the Palestinian Authority. You also have to make clear that even if the Muslim Brotherhood mostly cares about Egypt, the kind of regime they want to create is equally as hideous as Saudi Arabia’s. It would be a mistake to just forget about them because they are not an immediate threat to the West.

Another point to make in this connection is that you might easily come to the conclusion that solving the Palestinian problem would not only remove a couple of the locally focused Islamist baddies, take away the global Islamist revolutionaries' excuse of a Zionist eradication campaign against Muslims and thus would not only Israel but also the West would be a lot safer. In fact, just as Hamas has toned down its rhetoric, the much worse Islamic Jihad has moved into the vacuum and carried out several suicide bombings in their place.

Chances are that even if Israel completely disengaged from the Palestinian areas, The Zionist World Conspiracy a.k.a. Israel and the U.S. would still be blamed for tsunamis and the common flu alike.

Lastly I want to note that the article refrains from putting the Iranian regime in either category. Maybe because they change priorities according to who is president at the time but it would still be interesting to hear their views on Ahmadinejad.

The (basket) case of Korean politics

2006-04-26T08:39:00.000-07:00

Korean president Roh Moo-hyun whips up some more nationalistic hatred towards Japan in a speech delivered yesterday 25^th April 2006.

The speech is an angry tirade at Japan over the disputed islands of Dokdo (Korean name) or Takeshima (Japanese name). Although mixed with points like “we must refrain from emotional responses and keep our calm”, he basically links the Dokdo/Takeshima issue with the independence of the entire country and threatens with hostile relations if Japan doesn’t back down.

He portrays the conflict over the islets as a question of Japan continuing its “wars of aggression and annihilation as well as forty years of exploitation, torture, imprisonment, forced labor, and even sexual slavery. This cannot be tolerated by any means.”

Conditioning normal relations with Japan (who is a major trading and security partner of Korea) on historic issues, Roh also makes outright hostile statements:

“As long as Japan continues to glorify it’s past wrongs and claim rights based on such history, friendly relations between Korea and Japan cannot stand. So long as Japan clings to these issues, we will be unable to trust any of its rhetorical commitment to the future of Korea-Japan relations and peace in East Asia.”

Holding all other business with Japan over the Dokdo/Takeshima issue and yet refusing to meet with the other side won’t raise Korea’s credibility as a serious partner either.

“(…) so long as Japan does not give up its unjust claims regarding the underwater geological formations of the East Sea, addressing the EEZ becomes a matter that can brook no further delay. Consequently, the matter of Dokdo can no longer be dealt with through quiet responses.”

Japan is obviously not going to give up the claims just because there is another angry speech. That approach has been tried and it failed.

Keeping the dialogue to “dignified responses” as Roh continues his speech with calling for, seems rather contradictory in view of the aggressive tone of his own speech. Fact is that a “dignified response” might help with the overall relationship but Dokdo/Takeshima issue in itself, will not come to a settlement without international mediation such as referring the case to the International Court of Justice - the way Japan has been suggesting for a years.

Unfortunately there is little chance of that happening.

One reason is that the Dokdo/Takeshima issue is helpful in the witch-hunt for “traitors” that Roh’s ruling the Uri Party has put a lot of energy into since seizing power in 2004. By continually raising nationalistic hell over this issue Roh is able to keep the leader of the opposition Grand National Party, Park Geun-hye, in check. (Witness a typical attempt of of the Parks here character assassination .) Park Geun-hye is the daughter of the late president Park Chung-hee who has been a primary target of the current left-wing governing party as a “collaborator with the Japanese imperialists” for his year of service as a second lieutenant in the Japanese army 1944-45.

Others might say that securing $800 million in grants and loans from the Japanese in 1965 in exchange for a settling war responsibility and making Korea into an economic success is a somewhat more important characteristic of Park Chung-hee than his lack of focus on a few disputed islets.

If the primary aim of Korean politicians and public really was to eliminate doubts over the disputed island all they had to do was to shut up. Korea controls the islands and if Japan wanted to change that then *they* would have to make all the noise and jeopardise peaceful relations.

In stead Roh and others continue to equate talking tough with political credibility.

Hostile statements towards Japan is no news to either side of Korea’s political spectrum. Neither is a somewhat odd choice of allied in case of armed conflict with Japan. A scenario, which in itself is also rather removed from reality.

``I believe South and North Korea would cooperate to fight against Japan if a war breaks out. China and Russia would support the two Koreas, instead of Japan,’’, said Hahn Hwa-kap, chairman of the minor opposition Democratic Party (DP) when he met Tsutomu Takebe of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

They would rather ally themselves with Kim Jong-il, evil dictator of a country with which they are technically still at war, over a few rocky islet with the population of two (2) and spend their time shouting abuse at Japan, than show some responsibility and actually settle the case.

Against a backdrop like that it is hard for Japan not to appear as the responsible adult dealing with unruly children.

Probably not the wisest move on the Korean side.

Read more about this issue and the buzz in the blogosphere over at the Marmot's Hole .

Humanists of the world unite.

2006-04-23T14:23:00.001-07:00

Humanism in Denmark often comes across as a fancy word for what certain political groups driven by romanticism, do. They usually appear somewhat less than grounded in reality and their main policies are always to be in favour of which ever group that comes across as most pitiful and then to try and allocate lots of money to them. A sort of union of wannabe fairy godmothers except of course for their favoured uniform: full beard, a pipe and comfy trousers.

I’m talking about some parts of SF, EL, A, the now former VS and those further out to the left.

Until recently, however, I didn’t realise that humanists are actually internationally organised in e.g. the umbrella organisation IHEU (International Humanist and Ethical Union), which is an international NGO with Special Consultative Status with both the UN; UNESCO and Council of Europe.

They embrace Humanist, atheist, rationalist, secularist, skeptic, laique, ethical cultural, freethought and similar organisations world-wide.

When I read their newsletter, IHEU come across, not as romantic airheads (as their name made me believe at first), but as true heirs of the Enlightenment - fighting for principles like democracy, Human Rights, Freedom of Speech, and the separation of Church and State.

Our history’s most valuable assets, for once not used as projectiles in a political mudslinging contest but as what they are: the very cause that we, in the West, can live in such exceptional freedom and security.

Judging from their website and news-letter a significant part of their activities goes into checking the influence of religion in politics. The main difference between IHEU and other groups seemingly in agreement with them on this vital point being that IHEU is explicitly atheist and therefore not just out to curb the influence of some rival church or other.

In the latest issue of their newsletter IHN , president of IHEU, Roy Brown writes specifically about the conflict between Islam and the West. I would have liked to quote them both in full but unfortunately they appear rather massive when I put them up on this blog so I have decided to suffice with a couple excerpts. The entire articles are actually no more than a couple of pages so go ahead and read them anyway.

“Political Islam poses a major threat to the very basis of European civilisation, a fact apparently lost on most European intellectuals. With a few notable exceptions the response from both politicians and the media to the cartoons affair has been one of cringing apology. Yet demonstrators calling for “death to the cartoonists” outside the Danish embassy in London were protected by the police. Apparently incitement to murder is acceptable, provided your reasons are theologically sound.”

“As Amir Taheri the noted Iranian writer has pointed out, “Islamism is a political movement masquerading as a religion”. The Islamists in Europe have become masters at the blame game. They have manufactured the myth of “Islamophobia”, creating a false association between racism and fear of Islamic extremism. A phobia is an irrational fear, but our mistrust of Islamic extremism is perfectly rational, and criticism of Islam is perfectly legitimate.”

“The rioting and demonstrations were highly coordinated, involving the burning of a surprisingly ready supply of Danish flags, the torching of several embassies and a widespread boycott of Danish goods. This was no spontaneous grass-roots protest, but a well-orchestrated, government-supported display of Islamic power, clearly intended to intimidate the West. And the message is clear: western governments must be made to clamp down on freedom of expression or face the economic consequences. Freedom of expression – anathema in much of the Islamic world – can no longer be tolerated in the West.”

On what is going on the heads of Islamists:

“The objective of the Islamists is to use the violent protests to pressure western governments and the UN into passing legislation outlawing defamation of religion.”

(…)

“On 9 February the Financial Times reported that the OIC has called for the insertion of language into the founding document of the new Human Rights Council requiring the council to “prevent instances of intolerance, discrimination, incitement of hatred and violence” arising from any actions against religions, Prophets and beliefs”.”

(...)

“The demand is for human rights legislation to be extended to religion. No, not to the rights of believers, those rights are already protected, but to religion itself. The rationale offered is that an insult to any religion is an insult to the freedom of religion of its believers. But there is no human right not to be insulted. The very essence of freedom of expression – indeed its only value as a right – is when it defends the right to express what others may find offensive. No-one has the right not to be offended, nor to react violently when they are.”

“Since 1990 a large part of the Islamic world has rejected the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The only human rights now recognised by the OIC are those listed in the 1990 “Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam”. This declaration has been rightly criticised by Prof. Elizabeth Ann Meyer as more a catalogue of duties towards God than a statement of human rights. Nevertheless, objective of the Islamists is for those limited rights to become the rules of submission for every nation on earth.”

“We must resist the ever more shrill demands for special consideration for Islam in Europe when Islam so patently fails to respect the host culture into which it was welcomed. The parents and grandparents of many of today’s young European Muslims moved to the West to escape from the stultifying, backward regimes that the Islamists are now trying to impose.

The most that any religious leader should expect, and the most that those of other faiths or none can reasonably offer, is tolerance. We have no duty of respect to any religion or religious leaders that fail to respect others. Mutual tolerance is a virtue: it is the glue that holds a multi-cultural society together. But tolerance is not at all the same thing as respect. Respect cannot be imposed, it has to be earned, not through fear, but through evidence of consideration for others.”

IHEU has no member organisations in Denmark.

I wonder what it would take to make one? First you would have to take back the name of Humanism and bring it into contact with its historical roots.

All in the spirit of other fundamentalist movements rising elsewhere?

Turkish public misled

2006-04-22T04:28:00.000-07:00

In a previous post under the cautiously optimistic title ”reason prevails?” I blogged that the EU and OIC had agreed on a common statement of respect for both Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Belief. I wrote that in the hope that it would put at least a damper on the heated sentiments and most importantly, to provide a tool to handle future conflicts of the same sort.

Yesterday I stumbled across a Turkish paper dealing with this issue but the way it is reported gives a vastly different impression of what is actually in the text.

Two papers in different parts of the world not reporting uniformly, when was that ever news? – you might say. But I think the whole point of the two parties agreeing through their representatives disappears if each party think they have agreed on two different things.

Reading the article in JTW News you get the distinct impression that OIC’s demands were met with slight protests but in the end their draft proposal was adopted wholesale, essentially saying that the EU caved in to Muslim rage and curbed Freedom of Speech on matters of religion.

Needless to say (?) Danish news (link in Danish) stressed that EU's protests had produced actual changes to the text, radically altering the document from a ban on criticism to an encouragement of journalists to maintain a high ethical standard. Furthermore it was reported that OIC had completely given up its idea of adding Freedom from Religious Criticism to the Human Rights Charter.

JTW goes so far as to call the UNESCO statement a “draft law”, which is just plain wrong. UNESCO has no authority to issue any laws whatsoever.

Further underlining the impression that the EU and OIC has agreed to make religion off-limits to criticism is the JTW article’s final paragraph quoting “UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a message he issued on Wednesday, said no individual or group may insult any religious symbol.”

I still have so much respect for Annan’s intelligence to doubt that JTW is representing his statement truthfully. A career diplomat like Annan issuing blanket statements on such a serious issue just isn’t likely. Please prove me wrong.

JTW then quotes the title of the final document as "Respect for freedom of expression, sacred beliefs, values and religious and cultural symbols". That title typed into Google, however, yields only results back to the JTW News story and a mirror article at ZAMAN Daily Newspaper, another Turkish Daily. Chances are therefore that the Turkish papers got even the title of the document wrong.

I have been unable to actually find the UNESCO document in question (under any title) to see the wording for myself. If anyone out there can help me I’d appreciate it.

In an article on the same OIC-EU meeting the previous week JTW writes:

“An OIC proposal for the release of an international document by UNESCO as an assurance of reverence for religious beliefs as well as for freedom of expression was met with objection from member countries of the European Union. Turkey, with its membership to both organizations, takes on the role of a mediator in the talks.” (My underlining)

I hope they don’t mean that Turkey is a member of the European Union. They are not. Lots of countries are members of both UNESCO and OIC so that wouldn’t give Turkey any special position for it to act as mediator. Exactly what two memberships is it that JTW talks about here?

I have to read that passage as another sign that JTW takes accuracy and journalistic credibility somewhat lightly.

I don’t deny that Danish reporting on this issue is probably also very selective.

Until I find the document myself or see how it affects future conflicts I can only hope that they don’t mislead the public in the way I see JTW News does.

If the reporting in the rest of the Middle East is similar to or even more tendentious than the Turkish then I am afraid this “agreement” between OIC and EU is worthless.
Again, you might say, when was that ever news?

Madrasahs and Marxism - a vicious circle

2006-04-21T07:18:00.000-07:00

Last week I saw a documentary about the madrasahs in the northern part of Pakistan. One of the focal points for the programme was a family father who was very proud that he could afford to send his oldest son to one of the most prestigious Madrasahs in the area so he could learn the Koran by heart. That project would take about 13 years and in the end he would earn respect in the community and pass on his knowledge to future generations.

The leader of the school that the son was to go to, explained that normally kids at the age of 7 are old enough to start reading the Koran. When they graduate at the tender age of 20, then they could go on and take what we in the West would call normal education.

Is it any wonder that the Muslim part of the world never seems to be able to crawl out of poverty and misery?

The very instant you have something of a financial success you go and spend not only that but also 13 years in the life of the son you consider most able. And for what? In return for your handsome investment all you get is prestige for you and your family.

What an enormous waste of resources that is.

In stead of wasting it like that, 13 years of upkeep for your son could easily pay for the start-up of a small business for him so he could support his family and, in turn, help the community as a whole. In stead your son will know nothing but a bunch of old stories and a dialect no one speaks.

Anthropologists would call it “inconspicuous consumption”, i.e. the spending of resources on uselessness just to show that you can (the opposite is “conspicuous consumption”, i.e. displaying wealth in the most eye-catching way possible. Like the tail of a peacock.) The same dynamic is at work in the donning of the hijab and hiding away of the immense resources that women in the Arab countries *could be*. But because they are “as precious as diamonds” women are kept hidden away and spared the trivialities of helping society out of poverty.

Combine the tradition that wastes such vast amounts of resources (your brightest sons and all your daughters) plus the Muslim penchant for conspiracy theories, with wealthy donors in Europe who only look for solutions in their own conspiracy theory of choice: Marxism, and we have a vicious circle.

Marxism preaches that if someone is poor then it is because he is oppressed by an evil capitalist.

The majority of Muslim countries undeniably seem very poor and as soon as something is wrong then they all apparently come together to denounce the world’s capitalist country par excellence, the US. (If not them, then the Zionist World Conspiracy).

Marxists immediately agree to put the blame on evil capitalists and their knee-jerk reaction is therefore to criticise the West; send money to the “victims” and close their eyes to whatever atrocities might occur on the poor Muslims long march out of cultural imperialist, capitalist and racist slavery.

The more they focus on Islamic scholarship while shutting out modernity the more they are going to be mad at the West for their own incompetence and our superiority. The more they complain that they are oppressed by the Great Satan in the West the more prone to sending air are Marxists going to become. And thus the circle will keep reinforcing itself.

The truth is, however, that the biggest problem for both the Middle East is not a lack of money (oil, anyone?), it is the flawed reasoning that guides them in using that money. Muslim societies are poor, not because of oppression but because they choose to waste away their wealth.

When so many of their resources are wasted on moral fibre and so little is spent on science that could bring them optic fibres in stead, then the past and Washington are only bad excuses for a chance to aim that Kalashnikov firmly at their own feet.

Marxist theory, in this case, only helps to blur the vision of European decision-makers.

Apologising for a hideous regime is not going to help any population – poor or otherwise. Facing the real killers like religious fundamentalism and theocracy as an ideal way of governing a state, will.

Reason prevails?

2006-04-12T06:02:00.000-07:00

Muslim countries and EU have agreed on the wording of a statement concerning the relationship between religion and freedom of speech. The statement will be released later through UNESCO.

OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) had originally proposed a text that said the exercise of freedom of speech was conditioned on a “significant sense of responsibility” and with respect for religious faiths and beliefs.

The word “responsibility” was dropped because the obvious next question would be “responsibility to whom?”.

As I predicted in a previous post, OIC has also dropped the idea of a UN convention, which would protect religion from criticism by demanding sanctions if someone showed “disrespect” to religion.

You have to wonder exactly what world the OIC lives in when they could even dream up such a scheme. Are they perhaps a little too fond of the Godfather Trilogy? Mob-rule is all I can think when they demand respect and want to punish those who don't.

"Mr. Corleone is Johnny's godfather. To the Italian people, that is a very religious, sacred, close relationship."
Tom Hagen to Woltz in “The Godfather” (1972)

Like spoken out of the mouths the hooligans who claim Islam is a religion of peace.

Islamic world view

2006-04-06T04:54:00.000-07:00

Rule #1: Success depends on sticking with Allah and doing his bidding.

Rule #2: When things go wrong, blame someone else - starting with the Zionist World Conspiracy.

According to this article there is a fundamental difference between the Christian God and Allah, which explains the preference for conspiracy theories in the Middle East.

God/Jesus limits himself to goodness and suffers along with man when he hurts. Like a loving parent who looks equally if not more after his weaker children than his strong.

”Allah has absolute freedom, and therefore no obligation to men (…). Because good and evil only can be defined with respect to a purpose (…) nothing Allah might do might be considered good or evil, for he has no purpose. Allah simply is.”

“The God of Mohammed is a creator who well might not have bothered to create. He displays his power like an Oriental potentate who rules by violence, not by acting according to necessity, not by authorizing the enactment of the law, but rather in his freedom to act arbitrarily.”

“Paranoia (…) consists of assigning meaning to random events. But an omnipotent god exercising absolute freedom can only create a world of utter randomness. Human perception of such a universe too easily becomes what we otherwise call paranoia.”

“Only two things can explain the absence of success in Islamic terms. One is unfaithfulness, and the other is the action of a supernatural entity opposed to Allah, namely Satan.”

”To Ahmadinejad and his contemporaries, the entire world appears as a vast conspiracy to prevent them from having what rightfully is theirs: dominance of the Middle East from the Mediterranean to the Caspian, and eventually, much more. They know with absolutely certainty that they cannot fail, that the United States will withdraw from the region in confusion, and that they shall triumph.“

China’s influence growing in South Pacific

2006-04-02T04:41:00.000-07:00

As nations like Britain are moving out of its former colonies such as Vanuatu and Tonga in the South Pacific and are looking towards more pressing areas like Iraq, China is expanding its sphere of influence in that area, reports the unlinkable South China Morning Post:

In the past year, London has also closed its high commissions in Kiribati, a former British colony known as the Gilbert Islands, and Vanuatu. As the British pull out of a region they have dominated since the voyages of Captain Cook more than 230 years ago, China is emerging as a new regional force.

In an unprecedented visit, Premier Wen Jiabao this week leads a 200-member delegation to a trade summit with six South Pacific countries as part of a wider tour to Australia, New Zealand and Cambodia.

(…)

"The South Pacific wants to sell its resources and countries are looking to Chinese markets," said Ian Campbell, professor of politics at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji.

(…)

There are concerns that along with the mainland's much needed trade and investment come less welcome influences.

Unlicensed fishing boats from the mainland are plundering the Pacific for fish such as tuna and the mainland is also involved in the trade in illegal timber.

In a report released last week, Greenpeace estimated that more than 90 per cent of logging in Papua New Guinea is being conducted illegally, with most of the timber ending up on the mainland.

"China sees something of a power vacuum in the Pacific," said Susan Windybank, an analyst with the Centre for Independent Studies, an Australian think-tank.

"Britain is no longer interested; the Americans are involved only in the North Pacific in places like Guam, so the South Pacific is up for grabs. Australia is assertive in the region but its insistence that aid is conditional on good governance upsets some island leaders. The Chinese don't make a big noise about corruption."

Talking with terrorists

2006-04-01T06:38:00.000-08:00

The road the West has travelled lately in trying to deal with Muslims has been a bumpy ride indeed.

One major problem is that we don’t know who we are dealing with. Worst of all it often seems as if nobody wants to know who *they* are.

The argument swings from extreme to extreme without anyone being able to put forward a credible middle-ground.

One side of the argument was best put by former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, during a visit to the White House in May 2002. "But [what] I would like to say once again is that we can establish no differences among terrorists. They're all the same. They're all seeking to destroy our harmonious co-existence, to destroy civilization. They're seeking to destroy our democracy and freedoms."

Now there’s a blanket statement if there ever was one.

The other camp claims that a Muslim is per definition a poor, oppressed, and bewildered but noble man who is rightfully stressed over his estrangement from his own life and who sometimes lashes out in understandable anger and (regretfully) kills someone.

As if the Marxists finally lost faith in the coming of the proletarian dictatorship in Europe, and in stead staked their hopes on the oppressed Muslim classes who seem so eager to overthrow *their* oppressors. Oppressors who just happen to resemble the Marxists own nemesis: the evil capitalists.

Both camps use the argument that when Arabs or Muslims in general, say that they want to cut off someone’s hands, head, feet, etc. they don’t *really* mean it. It is just part of a particularly colourful rhetoric aimed at getting their religion on. Or something. If they are only left to their own devices for a bit, then they will certainly come to their senses. Sooner or later.

Why does that remind me of a parent sending a child to his room until he starts behaving? Or 1800^th century colonialist ideas of White Man’s Burden, where the poor natives needed someone wiser than them to look after them until their countries grew up.

Anyway, that is exactly how you come to conclusions like “our troops will be greeted with flowers in Baghdad”.

The chance to brush off the uncomfortable parts of the Middle East as freak abominations became a little more difficult when Hamas won the majority in the Palestinian Parliament in a democratic election.

“They don’t represent anyone. They are common criminals whom we just haven’t gotten around to sorting out yet. Their violent creed is not a part of the Religion of Peace. Actually they are nothing but extremists who have hi-jacked a religion. Etc.”

Not quite.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the largest opposition group in the Egyptian legislature. Hezbollah forms the second-largest bloc in the Lebanese parliament, and Hamas is now the majority party in the Palestinian Authority. Jamaat e-Islami is the most powerful and respected elected opposition to the Pervez Musharraf government in Pakistan.

These “extremists and terrorists” represent actual living people in the Middle East. Large parts of their populations think they are cool. Where is the intellectual dignity in just ignoring that as a minor bump on the road towards world wide harmony and understanding – on our terms of course?

If we don’t realise that we have immensely different views of life and what has value then we are going to continue miscalculating. Miscalculating scenarios involving increasingly well-armed parties is not the recipe for world wide harmony and understanding – on anybody’s terms.

Welcome anyone who wants to live along side us in our societies but acknowledge that secular democracy is not the ultimate goal of everyone. And WE are going to have to deal with that.

We have to recognise that not every one in the world is ultimately just waiting around to see the light when we show it to them.

That is why it is important for politicians to continue talking to groups like Hamas or Hezbollah. These groups make things happen that are vitally important to us. And we refuse to even talk to them? (Danish readers will understand this one: “De er ikke stuerene og vil aldrig blive det”. You may not like them but you are going to have to deal with them and maybe you will learn something along the way.)

We can’t continue subscribing to the idea that opposition to our way of life is simply based on a temporary whim or a criminal mindset. The label “oppressed masses” is ultimately dehumanising. Forgive them for know not what they are doing.

Yes they do. They know exactly what they are doing.

A group of journalists, former diplomats and intelligence officers have done what nobody with power wants to do: met Hamas, Hezbollah and others face to face and asked them in their own words who they are and what they are up to.

Read their account here and here. Its a start.

Muslims in the news

2006-04-01T03:07:00.000-08:00

I haven’t blogged in a while now. I want to go back to writing about East Asia but after the Mohammad-case I’ve found it hard to find something that catches my eye in a way that seems sufficiently important for me to spend a lot of time on it with my blog. I regret to say that the cartoon case is – or spin-off cases are – still in the media here in Denmark. Here is a sample:

Naser Khader, the politician I wrote about here, and his network of Moderate Muslims are losing leading members over threats from Muslims who don’t appreciate their effort in trying to create a different image of Muslims in Denmark.

Naser Khader has been living with 24 hour police protection for many years now. He and his family had to move out of an area dominated by immigrants from the Middle East a few years back because he was unpopular with them.

Last week the rallying point of his main adversaries in Islamisk Trossamfund (Society of the Islamic Faith) were the subject of a documentary by a French undercover journalist. Among other things he shot Ahmed Akkari (the spokesperson for the Muslims organisations complaining about Jyllandsposten’s images) on hidden camera, joking that: “If Naser Khader ever becomes minister. I wonder if a couple of guys won’t show up and bomb him and his ministry…”

The comment was met with appreciative grumbling and giggles by other imams around him.

When confronted by journalists with this footage Akkari brushed it off as a joke. And it probably was more a loose thought than a battle plan. Still - it’s just not very reassuring for the Danish population to have him joking around with blowing people up.

The same undercover journalist had two other scoops. The leading imam in Islamisk Trossamfund, Abu Laban, talked on hidden camera about a certain person who, in connection with the Cartoon Case, had been calling around, trying to create connections because he wanted to become a martyr.

When interviewed later, Abu Laban, as usual, wiggled out of this comment saying that a martyr can be many things in Arabic. I’m sure it can but, in the light of the violence, threats etc. in connection with the drawings, it is still not very reassuring to have him joking around with someone who wants to become one and, quite frankly, the number of times these imams just happen to turn up in connection with violence, lies, terrorism, etc. is becoming a little more than just conspicuous.

Last but not least one of Abu Laban’s helpers in Islamisk Trossamfund told the journalist (still on hidden camera) in plain language that, in their mosque, they were Salafists. For those of you who don’t know about Salafism, I can tell you that first and foremost it is the ideological basis of the Muslim Brotherhood. An organisation, which is widely perceived as the forerunner of al-Qaeda. Salafism is also closely related to Wahabism , which is the ideology prevalent in Saudi Arabia. In Algeria Salafism was the religious basis for some horrific acts committed by the GSPC.

Mr. Laban’s association with these kinds of people is probably why he is persona non grata in several Arab countries.

Last week was also when a large conference in Bahrain was held by Muslim scholars to determine where to go now, concerning the boycotts of Denmark over the Mohammad cartoons. In this connection Mr. Akkari told Al-Arabiya that the Foreign Minister of Denmark had ordered all imams in Denmark to be silent about this conference until the transcripts had been translated. That might make sense to Arab viewers accustomed to dictators and tyranny and it would certainly enforce the image they are hyping: "Denmark as the horrible oppressor of Muslims". In fact, no authority in Denmark has the capacity to silence anyone. Akkari knows that of course and still goes out and says something like that… Unbelievable.

This time, perhaps he hadn’t cleared his statement with his organisation because, the day after the news broke in Denmark, he stepped down as spokesman for them. Let’s wait and see if the next person fares any better.

Last but not least in the news: a café owner in Paris has been forced to censor newspaper drawings concerning Islam. The images were part of an exhibit touching on all religions. Only Muslim youths, however, showed up wielding metal pipes and threatening to thrash the place if he didn’t remove the items they found offensive.

I’m sure that they, like Abu Laban and Akkari, would also claim on TV that it was all a joke and they were horribly misunderstood. They didn’t say “thrash” but were rather talking peacefully amongst themselves about the *trash* they were taking out for their sick old grandmas, whom, incidentally, also use metal pipes for walking sticks.

Yes, yes. I’m sure that’s how it was.

Moderate voices

2006-02-14T06:01:00.000-08:00

If one good thing came out of these Cartoon Wars it’s that moderate Muslims in Denmark have left the couch and started to speak up against the radical imams who claim to represent people who actually will have none of them.

Most prominent among the moderates is the Syrian-born, Naser Khader who is also a member of Parliament.

He is a founding member of the network for Democratic Moslems, which has received overwhelming financial and moral support here in Denmark since its inauguration Feb. 4th.

On his web-Naser Khader lists among other things, the Ten Commandments of Democracy.

We must all separate politics and religion, and we must never place religion above the laws of democracy.
We must all respect that all people have equal rights regardless of sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.
No person must ever incite to hatred, and we must never allow hatred to enter our hearts.
No person must ever use or encourage violence – no matter how frustrated or wronged we feel, or how just our cause.
We must all make use of dialogue - always.
We must all show respect for the freedom of expression, also of those with whom we disagree the most.
No person can claim for themselves or assign to others a place apart, neither as superior persons, as inferior persons or as eternal victims.
We must all treat other people’s national and religious symbols as we wish them to treat ours – flag-burning and graffiti on churches, mosques and synagogues are insults that hinder dialogue and increase the repression of the other party.
We must all mind our manners in public. Public space is not a stage on which to vent one’s aggressions or to spread fear and hate, but should be a forum for visions and arguments, where the best must win support.
We must all stand up for our opponent if he or she is subjected to spiteful treatment.

Democracy 101. Unfortunately it is more necessary to repeat these simple precepts than anyone here in Denmark thought.

January 31, before the embassy burnings, Naser Khader wrote this essay in Danish daily, Berlingske Tidende:

(Translated by Moronabroad.)

I Feel Insulted

by Naser Khader

January 31, 2006

The case of the Jyllands-Posten prophet drawings has now reached hitherto unseen heights. Saudi Arabia and a couple of other Muslim countries now feel insulted and offended, and consumers in those nations are therefore starting a boycott of Danish goods. The line of the insulted gets longer and longer, and this author hereby adds himself to the queue: I feel insulted in my democratic consciousness. And I demand an apology. Now!
The Danish debate about Jyllands-Posten's Muhammed drawings has drawn out many voices. We've heard from the press itself, from the Prime Minister, from the opposition, from Muslim organizations, and from Muslim individuals.

Some consider the drawings an unacceptable insult to all Muslims, others don't. The same can be said with regard to the Islamic world: some feel insulted, others don't. My impressions from different Arabic media is that the most pervasive opinion – maybe surprising for some – can be summed up like this: We cannot as Muslims dictate that non-Muslims obey the dictated prohibition of picturing the prophet. The uprising over Jyllands-Posten is in other words not a grassroots movement in the Islamic world, and that's certainly also reflected in the tally of countries that have complained and threatened boycotts to this point. That's approximately a handful of the world's roughly 55 Muslim countries, and among these the loudest and most pointed protests are coming from Saudi Arabia.
Given this background, it's noteworthy that in Denmark one hears critiques of the drawings based on the premise that they're insulting to Muslims. The spokesman for Grundfos, Niels Due Jensen, forthrightly urges Jyllands-Posten to give the world's Muslims an apology. This paints all Muslims with one brush, a tendency which Jyllands-Posten's critics are otherwise usually right to condemn. Some charge that the insult targeted a weak group. To that I say that just because one is a Muslim doesn't require one to be weak.
As a Muslim and a democrat I therefore wish to stress: I (and many others) don't feel insulted by the drawings. On the contrary, I feel strongly insulted that where there was once a tradition for religious satire in the Middle East, it's now become primarily a western privilege to treat religion satirically. And insulted that freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and artistic freedom are for the most part reserved to the western world. Why don't we in Denmark fight for the Muslim artists' right to the same privileges as their western colleagues?

I feel insulted that we in Denmark hear demands for an apology to fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia instead of demands for democratic liberties for everyone, including Muslims.
Why don't we condemn Saudi Arabia's outrageous absence of democracy? Why do religious insults outweigh democratic insults?

You can write yourself senseless on the topic of how wise it was for Jyllands-Posten to put out the drawings. You can do the same on the topic of whether they were or weren't an expression of anything more than tasteless provocation. Or whether the government could have handled it differently. But it is indeed nothing but wonderful that the foreign minister is now "working diplomatically to calm the troubled waters." Dialog, yes. Apology, never. What should he apologize for? That we don't interfere in the freedom of the press and artistic freedom? Whom should he apologize to? Saudi Arabia?
If anyone ought to say they're sorry, it's Saudi Arabia. Apologize for its glaring disrespect of human rights, for its disrespect of religious freedom and for its systematic war on equality. For denying women their voting rights, for denying them a passport without a man's permission, for only counting their witness as half a man's, and for forbidding them something as banal as driving a car. For the poor underpaid Filippino Christian guest workers imprisoned just for possession of a personal Bible. Apologize for Sharia punishments. For hand amputations for thievery and the lash for consumption of alcohol. For stoning to death for infidelity and homosexuality, yes, I could go on.

Saudi Arabia should be ashamed, and an apology for having insulted the country with satirical drawings is simply a bow to fundamentalism.

My message to Saudi Arabia and the other Muslim countries who have joined the boycott therefore goes like this: You insult my democratic consciousness. Apologize.

Illusion of Muslim unity

2006-02-13T13:02:00.000-08:00

This week's edition of Weekendavisen (10-16 Feb.), prints a letter to the editor from Kadamat Alhussain Center in Copenhagen:

In the name of Allah, the merciful, the gracious, to the Danish people. Peace be upon you and God's grace.
In light of the occurrences, which the world is seeing today in the shape of violence, terror and killings of innocents, the Iraqi Shia-Muslim Society in Denmark wishes to distance ourselves in no uncertain way from these acts.
We Shia Muslims have been well received in Denmark after many years of persecution, extermination and acts of terror during the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. The persecution of the Shia-Muslims happen to this day in Iraq and it emmanates from the dirty, stinking and bloody hands, which commit terror in London and Madrid and the rest of the world. It is the same forces that create fear by issuing threats against the Danish people and the rest of the world.
We Shia-Muslims in Denmark hereby declare that we stand side by side with the good Danish people as well as the people of Europe so that terror may not gain a foothold on Earth.
The people who in the name of God support these acts of terror should not pretend to speak for all Muslims in the world and certainly not for the Shia-Muslims. These people, including some of those who call themselves imams, in Denmar and the rest of the world are abusing the name of God to spread extremist thoughts.
God and his prophet and following family (the 12 imams) have ordered us to live in peace along side of each other in spite of differences in cultures and religions. Through dialogue we can keep life on Earth peaceful and just. We Shia-Muslims wish to stand in front fighting terror. God will never legitimate these criminal acts. God uphold life in peace.
We make ourselves available for interviews and debate.
(My translation)

We have known for a while now that the hard-line islamist imams making a lot of noice "on the behalf of all the Muslims in Denmark" are a lying through their teeth. If the images of Mohammed was the straw that broke the donkey's back and unleashed pent up anger over all sorts of (related and unrelated) issues. May this letter be another straw on the back of the donkey that carries the idea of all Muslims being one.
Unfortunately normal Muslims are missing a chance of pointing this out to observers when their knee-jerk reactions to acts of terror is that "they are not Muslims".
The Islamist killers are Muslims too. A violent kind of Muslims but Muslims none the less.
It is illogical to be offended on behalf of the whole group at one time and refuse the association of a part of the same group when others point out their crimes to you.

Offence

2006-02-09T13:00:00.001-08:00

I’m seriously tired of this cartoon case and don’t think I want to recount my position once again. In stead I’ll let some one else do it for me. This time it’s Slate. Take it away:

Islam makes very large claims for itself. In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all. The prohibition on picturing the prophet—who was only another male mammal—is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing.
Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. This current uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say. For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism. But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death.
I refuse to be spoken to in that tone of voice, which as it happens I chance to find "offensive." ( By the way, hasn't the word "offensive" become really offensive lately?) The innate human revulsion against desecration is much older than any monotheism: Its most powerful expression is in the Antigone of Sophocles. It belongs to civilization. I am not asking for the right to slaughter a pig in a synagogue or mosque or to relieve myself on a "holy" book. But I will not be told I can't eat pork, and I will not respect those who burn books on a regular basis. I, too, have strong convictions and beliefs and value the Enlightenment above any priesthood or any sacred fetish-object. It is revolting to me to breathe the same air as wafts from the exhalations of the madrasahs, or the reeking fumes of the suicide-murderers, or the sermons of Billy Graham and Joseph Ratzinger. But these same principles of mine also prevent me from wreaking random violence on the nearest church, or kidnapping a Muslim at random and holding him hostage, or violating diplomatic immunity by attacking the embassy or the envoys of even the most despotic Islamic state, or making a moronic spectacle of myself threatening blood and fire to faraway individuals who may have hurt my feelings. The babyish rumor-fueled tantrums that erupt all the time, especially in the Islamic world, show yet again that faith belongs to the spoiled and selfish childhood of our species.
(…)
And civil society means that free expression trumps the emotions of anyone to whom free expression might be inconvenient. It is depressing to have to restate these obvious precepts, and it is positively outrageous that the administration should have discarded them at the very first sign of a fight.

Boycott Egypt!

2006-02-09T09:34:00.000-08:00

Examples of hypocrisy in this cartoon case abounds. Here is another:
One of the largest papers in Egypt, al Fagr, published the drawings in October last year without anyone noticing.

Sandmonkey, who found out about this, continues:

Guess we will have to Boycott Egypt now as well, huh?

Now while the arab islamic population was going crazy over the outrage created by their government's media over these cartoons, their governments was benifitting from its people's distraction. The Saudi royal Family used it to distract its people from the outrage over the Hajj stampede. The Jordanian government used it to distract its people from their new minimum wage law demanded by their labor unions. The Syrian Government used it to create secterian division in Lebanon and change the focus on the Harriri murder. And, finally, the Egyptian government is using it to distract us while it passes through the new Judiciary reforms and Social Security Bill- which will cut over $300 million dollars in benefits to some of Egypt's poorest families. But, see, the people were not paying attention, because they were too busy defending the prophet by sending out millions of e-mails and SMS-messages, boycotting cheese and Lego and burning Butter and the danish Flag. Let's not even mention the idiots who went the usual route of "It's a jewish conspiracy", spouted the stupid argument about the Holocaust, or went on a diatribe with the old favorite "There is an organized campaign-headed by the west and the jews- to attack and discredit Islam, and we have to defend it". They proved, once again, that the arab world is retarded and deserves no better than its leaders.

Special treatment for no one.

2006-02-05T11:58:00.000-08:00

The traffic on this site relating to the Mohammed case in Denmark is dropping but the violene in the Middle East is escalating. This tells me that Denmark and Jyllandsposten is now less at issue here. It has taken on a life of it own and now has more to do with the general and evercontinuing violence and chaos in the Middle East.
I would, however, like to clear up one misunderstanding I have read in Arab media the last couple of days.
The claim is that Islam being treated differently because, they say, "it is illegal to deny the Holocaust but an all out shooting gallery when it comes to Islam".
That is not true. In Denmark it is perfectly legal to doubt the Holocaust. As long as you can back up your claims with something substantial then you are free to publish what you want.
Freedom of Speech is not unlimited, though. Basically there are two limitations.
The first it that can not tell a lie. A court of law can order you to retract your words if they are unsubstantiated.
The second is that you cannot incite to violence.
That is what the radical Islamist party Hizb uth-Tahrir (which, contrary to several Arab countries, is legal in Denmark) found out when they distributed a quote from the Qu'ran on flyers and on the internet that said about the Jews: "Kill them wherever you find them". A spokesman "T" for the party was sentenced to 60 days jail but not required to serve them unless he commits another crime.
Similarly, a National Socialist radio station (Radio Holger, which is also legal in Denmark) said in a broadcast maybe three months ago about Muslims "We should kill them all!" The authorities condemned this and took away their licence for three months.
Islam is being treated exactly the way everybody else is. We realize that Denmark is a special case with very wide limits for Freedom of Expression. The images published by Jyllandsposten were never meant to leave this country. And they wouldn't have if it weren't for the lying sons of bitches in Islamisk Trossamfund who took them and a bunch of much worse, but unrelated, drawings in their hands and presented them uncritically, and with the intent to cause an uproar, to an unprepared public in the Middle East.
Thanks to them we now have rioters burning down diplomatic representations in Syria and Lebanon. We have Palestinian gunmen roaming hotels looking for Scandinavians to kill. We have demonstrations in London threatening with 9/11 style attacks - demanding blood on the streets. The perfect illustration of why the drawings made a connection between Islam and terrorism.
I don't care if the Prophet is your whole life. Get a hobby. It's not healthy to be that obsessed with something.
The Middle East figures prominently in the media in Denmark because it is a very troubled region. Violence is often perpetrated in the name of Allah. We, in Denmark, reserve the right to talk about that without being called racists or infidels.
The respect of other peoples' right to have a religion does not mean that we have to follow that religion's commands. That means that we can print images of Mohammed if we want to. If we want to combine the troubled Middle East with Islam then we are going to do that.
That is something Muslims have to understand and there is no way around it.
Clearly there is a need for this kind of education. I have seen ridiculous misunderstandings of the concept of Freedom of Speech by Muslims along the line of "You don't have the right to insult me because if you did then I have the right to blow up anything I find offensive. We don't want that, now do we?"

Europe and Freedom of Speech

2006-02-03T07:28:00.000-08:00

The comment that accompanied the reprinting in France Soir of the Mohammed cartoons from Jyllandsposten. (Through Guardian Unlimited.)

It is necessary to crush once again the infamous thing, as Voltaire liked to say. This religious intolerance that accepts no mockery, no satire, no ridicule.
We citizens of secular and democratic societies are summoned to condemn a dozen caricatures judged offensive to Islam. Summoned by who? By the Muslim Brotherhood, by Syria, the Islamic Jihad, the interior ministers of Arab countries, the Islamic Conferences - all paragons of tolerance, humanism and democracy.
So, we must apologise to them because the freedom of expression they refuse, day after day, to each of their citizens, faithful or militant, is exercised in a society that is not subject to their iron rule. It's the world upside down. No, we will never apologise for being free to speak, to think and to believe.Because these self-proclaimed doctors of law have made this a point of principle, we have to be firm. They can claim whatever they like but we have the right to caricature Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha, Yahve and all forms of theism.
It's called freedom of expression in a secular country ...For centuries the Catholic church was little better than this fanaticism. But the French Revolution solved that, rendering to God that which came from him and to Caesar what was due to him.

The editor, Jacques Lefranc, was sacked the same evening by the paper's Egyptian owner.

Die Welt from Germany also published four of the images. Editor-in-chief, Roger Köppel, told the Guardian about the issue:

"It's at the very core of our culture that the most sacred things can be subjected to criticism, laughter and satire. If we stop using our journalistic right of freedom of expression within legal boundaries then we start to have a kind of appeasement mentality. This is a remarkable issue. It's very important we did it. Without this there would be no Life of Brian."

German Foreign Minister refused the idea that he should apologise for something, which is clearly protected by the Freedom of Speech.

French foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy announced that "You can never put question marks around the freedom of speech in any European country, and therefore we have all declared our solidarity with the Danes."

Today the Danish Premier Minister and Foreing Minister held a meeting with all foreign envoys and once again explained the Governments position. After the meeting the Premier stressed on a press meeting the 'mutual' part in "mutual understanding", which everybody is calling for. It also means that Arab countries must understand that Freedom of Speech and independent media are cornerstones in a democracy.

You don't go around apologising for cornerstones.

Outside, the Egyptian ambassador to Denmark, Mona Omar, revealed that she might have to be told a few more times. She demonstrated perfectly how hard it is to explain something to people who just don't want to listen: she continued to ask for the Premier to interfere with the press - to put it in its place.

What part of 'No!' don't you understand, Mona?

Muslims step completely out of line with demands of religious censorship laws in Denmark

2006-02-01T04:27:00.000-08:00

It has been suggested a coupple of times by angry Muslims in the news these last days. Last night on TV2 News the anchor interviewed a Saudi Arabian manager and business editor, Hussein Shobokshi.

Anchor: What, in your opinion, will it take to solve this crisis?
Hussein Shobokshi: A dialogue. And more intellectual material on the prophet and Islam must be made available to the Danish population. And these kinds of acts must be made illegal in the future- There is a limit, which shouldn’t be crossed because I will not allow my fellow countrymen – or believers – to insult Buddha, Krishna, Jesus or Moses. There are limits because this is a very sensitive area. I’m not criticising William Shakespeare or a play by Tennessee Williams, or a piece by Chopin or Mozart here. It is a religious matter and it is very, very sensitive. And you shouldn’t insult that if you want a relationship based on respect.

Well, let me tell you, Mr. Shobokshi that the above statements are clearly insulting to the values of our European traditions. There can be no relationship between the West and the Muslim world based on those terms.
I have personally lost all respect for the Muslim world for the arrogance, primitive manners and insolence that has been shown in this case. This is outright imperialism. And they even pretend that they are victims. Some one needs to slap them around a bit.
It really pisses me off that they can have the audacity to imply that their religious rules are valid to anybody else but themselves.
Go ahead and fuck up your own countries with your primitive excuse for a religion. A law forbidding these drawings would go directly against the values that Western societies have been built upon. I hate to break this to you Muslims but Liberal Democracy is a winning formula. We have seen in Afghanistan what Sharia means and it is nothing short of despicable.
Please understand that only a small part of the world is Muslim and we in the West will have none of your particular kind of fascism. Ever.

Today an Icelandic paper, D.V. (Their web-site shows only an error message: Server too busy. Three Danish papers were subjects to hacker attacks of the Denial of Service type) published the images. The German Die Welt published four of them and a French paper, France Soir, published all the 12 drawings plus one they had made themselves under the headline “Yes, it is allowed to make caricatures of God”. (The France Soir web-site was also working extremely slow when I tried to access it.)
Along with the drawings the paper’s editor, Serge Faubert, comments:
“The world is turned upside down. No, we will never apologise for having the freedom to speak, think and believe.” The editor continues to stress that in democratic countries with freedom of religion we have the right to make caricatures of Mohammad and all other prophets, whether is offends believers or not.
“That is the price for the exact freedom that allows believers to worship their religion next to others in a state without an official religion”
“We are fed up with being lectured by these overzealous reactionaries. There are no racist undertones and no wish to slander a specific group in society in the images. Some are funny, some are less so, and that’s it. In order to show that, we have chosen to publish them.”
He continues to stress that because the Qu’ran forbids images of the prophet it does not mean that non-Muslims must abide by this rule and there is no reason to submit oneself to the Muslim “inquisition”.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Oh, the irony!

2006-01-31T09:44:00.000-08:00

In response to Jyllandsposten's connecting Islam with terrorism, today some genious phoned in a bomb threat to the Danish daily. Their offices in Both Copenhagen and Aarhus have been evacuated.

I am seriously thinking of buying me one of these from Free Speech Webshop.

Images of Mohammed through history

2006-01-31T07:04:00.000-08:00

I present to you a small collection of Muhammed images through the ages. Some are new. Some are old. The flashy ones are readily available on the streets of Iran.
There are many more pictures where these came from.

A considerable portion is from Islamic sources. What made the Muslims suddenly get all excited about the images in Jyllandsposten?

Mohammed update

2006-01-31T04:01:00.000-08:00

The misunderstandings that Chief Editor of Jyllandsposten speaks about have come about partly due to the deceit of Danish imams who are apparently hell-bent on creating conflict.On 29th of January, Danish imam Abu Bashar showed a picture of Mohammed with a pig’s snout and ears to BBC World and said it was one of the images published by Jyllandsposten.That is not true and BBC journalism standard stinks for not figuring it out.The images posted by Jyllandsposten are available here.
Another lying Danish imam is the infamous Abu Laban who started the protest wave. He claimed to represent 200,000 Danish Muslims and 20 organisations. When Danish daily, Ekstra Bladet, went through the list it turned out that some of the organisations didn’t exist and others had not asked to be part of his crusade. In all Abu Laban could only claim to represent 15.000. When confronted with this fact his reply was “Well, you can say that the list shows the truth plus tax”. What a joker he is… Link in Danish.
Meanwhile in the international support for Denmark section Hungarian Foreign Minister has called the images “very hard to criticise” and said that the Arab countries are overreacting.
Austrian foreign minister Ursula Plassnik said that the EU "strongly rejects" the threats issued by Palestinian Islamist groups to Danes, Swedes and Norwegian in the area. Sweden doesn't even have anything to do with this.
"We have expressed a spirit of solidarity with our northern colleagues, as well as our belief and attachment to the freedom of press and the freedom of expression as part of our fundamental values, and the freedom of religious beliefs," Ms. Plassnik said, adding that she hoped that the matter would be solved through "dialogue between the involved parties".
French foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy announced that "You can never put question marks around the freedom of speech in any European country, and therefore we have all declared our solidarity with the Danes."
In the US a buy-Danish campaign is taking off.
Reporters Without Borders has voiced concern about the Jordanian parliament’s call for the punishment of the cartoonist who drew 12 caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed that appeared in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten on 30 September and were reprinted in the Norwegian publication Magazinet on 10 January.
“Islam forbids any representation of the Prophet and we realize that these cartoons may upset some people, but it is not acceptable for the parliament of a supposedly democratic country to call for the cartoonists to be punished,” the press freedom organisation said.

Jyllandsposten’s letter to the Arab world

2006-01-31T03:25:00.000-08:00

Link

Honourable Citizens of The Muslim World
Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten is a strong proponent of democracy and freedom of religion. The newspaper respects the right of any human being to practise his or her religion. Serious misunderstandings in respect of some drawings of the Prophet Mohammed have led to much anger and, lately, also boycott of Danish goods in Muslim countries.
Please allow me to correct these misunderstandings.
On 30 September last year, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten published 12 different cartoonists' idea of what the Prophet Mohammed might have looked like. The initiative was taken as part of an ongoing public debate on freedom of expression, a freedom much cherished in Denmark.
In our opinion, the 12 drawings were sober. They were not intended to be offensive, nor were they at variance with Danish law, but they have indisputably offended many Muslims for which we apologize.
Since then a number of offensive drawings have circulated in The Middle East which have never been published in Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten and which we would never have published, had they been offered to us. We would have refused to publish them on the grounds that they violated our ethical code.
Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten attaches importance to upholding the highest ethical standards based upon the respect of our fundamental values. It is so much more deplorable, therefore, that these drawings were presented as if they had anything to do with Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten.
Maybe because of culturally based misunderstandings, the initiative to publish the 12 drawings has been interpreted as a campaign against Muslims in Denmark and the rest of the world.
I must categorically dismiss such an interpretation. Because of the very fact that we are strong proponents of the freedom of religion and
because we respect the right of any human being to practise his or her religion, offending anybody on the grounds of their religious beliefs is unthinkable to us.
That this happened was, consequently, unintentional.
As a result of the debate that has been going on about the drawings, we have met with representatives of Danish Muslims, and these meetings were held in a positive and constructive spirit. We have also sought in other ways to initiate a fruitful dialogue with Danish Muslims.
It is the wish of Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten that various ethnic groups should live in peace and harmony with each other and that the debates and disagreements which will always exist in a dynamic society should do so in an atmosphere of mutual respect.
For that reason, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten has published many articles describing the positive aspects of integration, for example in a special supplement entitled The Contributors. It portrayed a number of Muslims who have had success in Denmark. The supplement was rewarded by the EU Commission.
Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten takes exception to symbolic acts suited to demonise specific nationalities, religions and ethnic groups.

Sincerely yours
Carsten
Juste Editor-in-Chief

Jyllandsposten and the Mohammed controversy

2006-01-30T11:37:00.000-08:00

Neither Jyllandsposten, nor the Premier Minister have anything what so ever to apologise for.
Connecting Islam and terrorism is not an insult to anyone else but the victims of Islamist’s indiscriminate bombings.
Drawing the image of Mohammed is part of normal Freedom of Speech in the Western World. No threats or boycotts are going to change that. It means that Islam is treated in exactly the same way as anybody else here. Muslims should be thankful for that.
Criticising is not the same as insulting. Most people above the age of 10 know that.
Chief Editor of Jyllandsposten, Carsten Juste, has explained in an open letter to the Arab public that the drawings were not meant as insults and that he feels sorry for the hurt feelings that the drawings have caused.
Sharia does not apply to anyone else but Muslims.
Denmark is not a Muslim country. In Denmark the Rule of Law applies. The Premier Minister has no power over the press. Only the courts can order private citizens or companies to do anything.
A government sponsored or induced boycott of Denmark over the drawings would be a violation of WTO rules.

The traffic on this blog has shot through the roof the last couple of days. I even had hits from the American Army’s Intelligence Service. A couple of hits from Doha also ticked in.
Is what I have written above clear enough for you?

If you want some more details then you probably already know that Saudi Arabia pulled back its ambassador to Denmark. Several other Middle Eastern Countries have expressed condemnation. Popular boycotts of Danish products have started emerging in several arab countries.
To night Danish Premier Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said to the TV2 news that as a private person he would never have drawn something like what Jyllandsposten did. At the same time he stressed that the Government could not apologise on behalf of a private company and that Freedom of Speech is essential to the Danish society.

Some Muslim voices have suggested that they should ask the UN for a resolution banning “attacks on religion”.
I predict that proposal to have very little chance of getting through the UN.
For one thing it would have to be approved by China in the Security Council and one of their favourite hobbies is to persecute the sect, Falun Gong. They would never pass anything like that.
Sheer logic would also work against the idea. Hindus hold cows sacred. Pigs are unclean to Muslims and Jews. Jehova's Witnesses consider blood transfusin unclean. A sect in America renounces zippers and cars. Just about every day of the week is holy to some religion somewhere. A resolution like that would create utter chaos.
Even if a watered down version went through, it would hardly change the way the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg interprets the relation between Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion.
As previously reported on this site, Isi Foighel, former judge of the court doubts that they would even take up he case and if they did, there would be no doubt that they would rule in favour of Jyllandsposten.
Henning Koch, professor of constitutional law at the University of Copenhagen, although critical of the drawings, also clearly rejects the suggestion that they are illegal.

So what is left of all this controversy?
There are a large number of Muslims demanding special treatment for their religion. In order to obtain that, they have resorted to issuing threats to life and property. All because a Danish newspaper exerted its legal rights and Freedom of Speech and connected Islam with terrorism.
These whiny Muslims seriously need to grow up.