To all my loved ones, relations, friends, Christians and people who acknowledge Christ the world over, may there be Peace On Earth And Goodwill To Mankind.





With the fondest of wishes from me

Aceh Sharia forbids Chinese dance of the lions

Jakarta (AsiaNews) - Indonesians of Chinese descent are in revolt against the decision of the Religious Affairs Office of Aceh, which has banned the popular barongsay (the dance of the lions, ed) during the commemorations of the fifth anniversary of the tsunami. The authorities explain that it is clearly extraneous to local culture and they want to "maintain religious harmony." The descendants of the Chinese replicate by describing the decision as "ridiculous".

Kim, an Indonesian of Chinese descent in North Jakarta, speaks of a "ridiculous and shameful" decision, in open violation of the five basic principles (the Pancasila) that "ensure full respect for cultural diversity." They are the five pillars of secular nationalism, on which the country has built its history since independence in 1945. "The decision to ban the barongsay - he adds - humiliates the various ethnic groups in Indonesia, including the Chinese people of Aceh."...

A. Rahman TB, an official of the Religious Affairs Office of Aceh - the most fundamentalist province of the country, where Islamic law is in force - justifies the decision stressing that the dance "has never been represented before" and the desire to maintain" religious harmony among the Muslims of Aceh and other ethnic groups in the province".

"It's stupid" replies Martini, a woman of Chinese origin who lives in Jakarta, based on "completely unfounded reasons". The Chinese community states that the barongsay has"no religious character", but is only a" cultural show ". Finally they add that they received all necessary permits from local authorities, including a police permit....Asia News . Hat tip: Dhimmi Watch

Those run down shacks which are greeen in colour are the living quarters of the soldiers of that time. These are the guys who have given their all. Look at the joy, written on their faces for the simple uncomplicated things in their lives. They were serving their country. There are Ibans, Kadazans, Malays, Indians and Chinese in this picture. They had toiled this empty land after hours and they now enjoy the produce of this land. Yonder, over the horizon, is the Kemasul Forest Reserve. The one time playground of Freddie Spencer Chapman. Not many can, nowadays, have the luxury of relating that period of time. Women of Commanding Officers are silly, most of the time. Check, call and e-mail me about that.

It is one of the moments in life, wives of juniors have to come clean. It is not the pen pushers, who have fought the good fight. It is that rare breed of men, who did not care a shit about their careers, who have made what the Army what it is today! The Mess is the domain of the Officers, not that of the CO's wife! The CO's wife is there not to be heard, but to take better care of the soldiers wives and families. She is not royalty, but a woman who fell in love with a humble person, but soon to forget her origins.


Fresh corn (jagong) from their sweat and toil being enjoyed by all, warrior fathers. The ones recognised are in white. WO2 Ismail Johari, Sergeant Benet Barong, CSMI Jelengai Gawong, WO2 Abdul Rahman (late) and WO 2 Benedict. Sitting on the left in white, is Sergeant Jack Minan. In the centre clutching his hips, is WO2 Thangarajan. That is a Ranger Battalion, a mean fighting unit during it's weekend. More pics here....

Pakistan court orders ears and noses to be cut off

A Pakistani court has ordered that two men have their ears and noses cut off, as punishment for doing the same to a woman who refused to marry one of them. The two brothers were found guilty of kidnapping 20-year-old Fazeelat Bibi, one of their cousins, in September. The judge in Lahore also sentenced them to life in prison. Sentence was passed on Monday under a rarely invoked Islamic law dating from the 1980's. In the past similar sentences have been revoked on appeal.

'Eye for an eye'Government prosecutor Ehtisham Qadir said the punishment had been awarded in accordance with the Islamic principle of "an eye for an eye". Sher Mohammad and Amanat abducted Fazeelat Bibi as she returned home from work at a brick kiln in the Raiwind area of Lahore, the court heard. "They put a noose around her neck, and then cut off her ears and nose," Mr Qadir told the BBC. Three alleged accomplices are still being sought by police.

The crime was committed after Fazeelat Bibi's parents refused to give her hand in marriage to Sher Mohammad, Mr Qadir said. Islamic laws were introduced in Pakistan during the military regime of General Ziaul Haq in the 1980s. The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says punishments prescribed under the laws have rarely been awarded, and never carried out. Pakistani human rights activists have long campaigned for more to be done to stop attacks against women, which often include facial disfigurement. However, they also disagree with the type of punishment handed out in Lahore, correspondents say. BBC

But then it is expected of Pukistan, ooops Pakistan, On August 6 the judge Malak Saeed Ejaz of Multan Bench of Lahore High Court ordered for the medical examination of Saba Younas to ascertain her age. The medical report concluded that the girl is 16 to 17 years old and had reached the puberty; despite the fact her Catholic birth certificate plainly states she is 13. “After the medical report the chances of Saba’s return are less” family lawyer Rashid Rehman says “because a 16 to 17 years old girl has reached puberty and ‘is able’ to get married’”. Rehman noted another unfavourable factor was that on being questioned, the girl stated in the court that she is 17 years old and has ‘converted to Islam and got married on her own will’”. In full about the Pakis.

In view of the precarious situation of religious minorities in Islamic countries, the uproar in the Islamic world over the Swiss referendum banning the construction of minarets is exaggerated and hypocritical, says author and media researcher Khaled Hroub

Reflecting "Swiss conditions"

But aside from this, we have to consider the situation of minorities in Islamic countries. It is without a doubt a bitter fact that the "Swiss conditions" bemoaned by Muslims are rapidly beginning to resemble the human rights situation that minorities in their own countries of origin already experience, although there is one decisive difference:

In Switzerland the government and all leading political parties, associations, representatives of Christian and Jewish religious communities, and civil society organizations stood at the side of their Muslim fellow citizens and supported their right to freely practice their religion.

By contrast, in nearly all Islamic countries a powerful ruling elite stands at the head of a broad front of politicians and opinion makers who oppose the construction of churches along with the building of sacred buildings for members of other religions. Read it all in the Qantara.de

it does not look too great for our Great Leader

their rapacious greed. Historians used to believe that a rise in Europe’s population led to a crisis of too many noble "second sons," those who were trained in chivalric warfare but who had no feudal lands to inherit. The Crusades, therefore, were seen as a safety valve, sending these belligerent men far from Europe where they could carve out lands for themselves at someone else’s expense.

Modern scholarship, assisted by the advent of computer databases, has exploded this myth. We now know that it was the "first sons" of Europe that answered the pope’s call in 1095, as well as in subsequent Crusades. Crusading was an enormously expensive operation. Lords were forced to sell off or mortgage their lands to gather the necessary funds. They were also not interested in an overseas kingdom. Much like a soldier today, the medieval Crusader was proud to do his duty but longed to return home. After the spectacular successes of the First Crusade, with Jerusalem and much of Palestine in Crusader hands, virtually all of the Crusaders went home.

Only a tiny handful remained behind to consolidate and govern the newly won territories. Booty was also scarce. In fact, although Crusaders no doubt dreamed of vast wealth in opulent Eastern cities, virtually none of them ever even recouped their expenses. But money and land were not the reasons that they went on Crusade in the first place. They went to atone for their sins and to win salvation by doing good works in a faraway land.

As a Muslim who knows that the core of her religion is about justice and mercy, I asked myself how the perpetrators of these acts could have strayed so far from the Muslim faith and from basic humane principles. Yet certain verses continue to be misused in support of unequal treatment of women, such as: “Your women are as a tilth [land] for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilth as when or how you will” (Qur'an 2: 223). This verse is misinterpreted by some as giving license to men over women's bodies- in Malaysiakini

Here are some differences, which confuse alot of us, especially so from the article above which excuses away, that a verse is misinterpreted. Are the translations wrong? : Six translations of Qur'an 4:34:

"Men are superior to women on account of the qualities with which God has gifted the one above the other, and on account of the outlay they make from their substance for them. Virtuous women are obedient, careful, during the husband's absence, because God has of them been careful. But chide those for whose refractoriness you have cause to fear; remove them into beds apart, and scourge them: but if they are obedient to you, then seek not occasion against them: verily, God is High, Great!" (Rodwell's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)

"Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. Surely God is high, supreme." (Dawood's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)

"Men are in charge of women, because Allah has made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah has guarded. As for those from whom you fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great." (Pickthall's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)

"Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that God has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for God's guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them. If they then obey you, look not for any way against them; God is All high, All great." (Arberry's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)

"Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in their sleeping places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great. (Shakir's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)

"Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whom part you fear disloyalty and ill conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means (of annoyance) for Allah is Most High, Great (above you all). (Ali's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34) Wikipedia. Here is a site exposing honor killings of Muslim women.

Paris - When Jerusalem was conquered in 635 AD, the second caliph Omar Ibn Al-Kattab refused to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, despite an invitation from the Christian patriarch Sophronius, for fear that his men invoke the precedent to turn the place of worship into a mosque and thus deprive the Christians of their right to freely practice their religion. A leftist's bullshit in Malaysiakini. So who conquered Jerisalem? Answer: The Muslims!

The Ottoman Sultan Fatih Mehmet conquered the Byzantine capital of Constantinople in May 1453, one of his first acts was to order a wooden minaret added to the 900-year-old church of Hagia Sophia to signal its conversion into a mosque. The temporary wooden minaret was soon rebuilt in stone and three others added for good measure. As Mehmet and his successors built other mosques in their new capital, Istanbul’s skyline came to be punctuated by dozens of slender, arrow-like minarets that gave the Ottoman capital a distinctive aspect and signaled to all that it was no longer the capital of Christian Byzantium but the new capital of an Islamic empire on the blood of Christians.

Myth 1: The Crusades were wars of unprovoked aggression against a peaceful Muslim world.

This is as wrong as wrong can be. From the time of Mohammed, Muslims had sought to conquer the Christian world. They did a pretty good job of it, too. After a few centuries of steady conquests, Muslim armies had taken all of North Africa, the Middle East, Asia Minor, and most of Spain. In other words, by the end of the eleventh century the forces of Islam had captured two-thirds of the Christian world. Palestine, the home of Jesus Christ; Egypt, the birthplace of Christian monasticism; Asia Minor, where St. Paul planted the seeds of the first Christian communities: These were not the periphery of Christianity but its very core. And the Muslim empires were not finished yet.

They continued to press westward toward Constantinople, ultimately passing it and entering Europe itself. As far as unprovoked aggression goes, it was all on the Muslim side. At some point what was left of the Christian world would have to defend itself or simply succumb to Islamic conquest. The First Crusade was called by Pope Urban II in 1095 in response to an urgent plea for help from the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople. Urban called the knights of Christendom to come to the aid of their eastern brethren. It was to be an errand of mercy, liberating the Christians of the East from their Muslim conquerors. In other words, the Crusades were from the beginning a defensive war. The entire history of the eastern Crusades is one of response to Muslim aggression.

Anymore fairy tales?

There is a poll on the left side bar of my blog on our Great Leader. You are allowed 5 answers. This poll will run for a month. It is what you feel about him. It basically is about what is he, the"Father of". Happy Polling!

So you mean that PAS cannot compromise on its position on hudud law and the Islamic state? Nik Aziz: How can we compromise? This is our ibadat (religious obligation). If we reject the meaning of Islam, we are rejecting our ibadat. God created man to follow ibadat, which is not restricted to just praying.

Not only in Britain. Saudi funded Islamic academies in the US teach the same intolerance and hatred toward Christians and Jews.



It is alway the case of not read in the correct Arabic, or the infamous and abused word, " out of context", see the Saudi bitch squirming and obfuscating, after calling the Jews and Christians as monkeys and pigs, when faced up front and questioned. Oh yes, she lies with a straight face about the Saudi platitudes of hate. It is amazing she talks about tolerance...and she is a Saudi!!!!!!

The Pathologisation of Muslims As Everything That is Wrong With Europe

A long extract by someone named Fess: I’m sure Farish didn’t intend to open up a debate about the middle east and all that entails, and I’ve certainly avoided that subject thus far, but as Ida brings it up, ostensibly to have a, all too predictable poke at the jews, I consider myself granted license to respond. Take this particulal nugget: “If the word muslims were to be replaced with jews (note the lower cases), the Press Complains Comission will be very busy.”

If if if if. Well if Jews were blowing up buses and underground stations, flying planes into skyscrapers, butchering fellow soldiers etc etc then I think it’s accurate to say that the press would report such stories with as much, if not more, gusto as they do the bad news Muslim stories. Stop shooting the messenger.

If British Muslims don’t want the press to cover such stories then the best advice I can give them is to bring about the level of change in their communities necessary to deny the oxygen which allows such extremism to flourish.

Jews don’t get this sort of press in Europe because there doesn’t exist any pattern of Jews behaving like this in Europe. If Muslims are so affronted by the press coverage then the rational advice anyone would offer them is to, and I know this is a real choker, do as the Jews do, which is to say do as practically every other religion and ethnicity does. Be citizens, identify yourself with the country you live in, WITHOUT QUALIFICATION, educate your children to accept as equals, again without qualification, their classmates and other kids in the neighborhood and allow happen what happens to every other community which migrates to a new land, BECOME PART OF IT!!! Ida Bakar, another thing the US is a republic with strict constitutional separation between church and state. It isn’t a “christian country” it is a republic where the majority of the population are christian.

As regards Gaza I think that is another front and although I’m greatly tempted to take you on about that I’ll restrict my response to this: why no mention of the HAMAS rockets which targeted Israeli civilians exclusively? Why no mention of the fact that civilian martyrdom is both a tactic and a goal of the Palestinian leadership? I don’t want to clog up this blog with link the the relevant footage, go look for yourself, but this is am incontrovertible fact! To paraphrase Golda Meir: The Israel Palestinian issue will be solved easily once Palestinian parents learn to love their children more than they hate the jews.

Ida conveniently mentions US interventions in Irag and Afghanistan but avoids the more troublesome US involvement in Bosnia. Troublesome for Ida because there was no motivation other than to save the Bosnian Muslims from the Serbians which goes a long way towards scuppering the notion that these represent christian wars against Muslims.

I note also that Ida states that Muslims contribute large number of doctors to the British Health Service. Do these Muslims arrive in the UK with their skills honed and offer their services? No, they don’t. The Muslims in question, and quite righty too, take advantage of an educational system which is open to all. It doesn’t, as is done in Malaysia to the non Malay (read non muslim) minorities, set a higher bar for Muslims to vault than it does for others. Doesn’t this reveal a somewhat level playing field rather than expose some plot to hold the Muslims back? Which takes me to another point of Farish’s which really does need taking on, head on:

“I sadly note that in all the years that I taught in Europe, I did not have a single Arab-Muslim student to supervise at Masters or Phd level. The stereotype has become a self-fulfilling prophesy.” says Farish. Indeed.

Well Farish, is the situation really as you seek to imply? It seems you’re rather having your cake and eating it too. You offer nothing to back up the conclusion you’ve drawn, and shared publicly here, other than the conclusion itself plus some dark hints at European racism. Why not offer something more than that? If you really believe that Arabs find themselves educationally discriminated against by European academic institutions, or European societies in general and given that your own academic achievements are, virtually without exception, European, by now, you must have a storehouse full of examples of this discrimination. Yet you offer nothing save your observation that you’ve “yet to have a single Arab-Muslim student to supervise at Masters or Phd level.” Do you really expect anyone, except perhaps your students, to treat such a comment seriously? To draw the conclusion you seek to proffer?

There are myriad alternative conclusions to draw from the rather impoverished data you offer. I’ll offer a couple, they might be right or they might be wrong, likely they’re part of a causal matrix of contributing factors, but at least they offer a more enriched set of explanations, or part explanations, than does your own, rather pat, hand crafted one.

1) Arab parents are less interested in rather abstract fields like your own and prefer their children to acquire more traditional professional qualifications such as (thanks Ida Bakar for reminding me) Medicine or Engineering. As a Dubliner this makes sense to me given the amount of Arabs enrolled in the Dublin Royal College of Surgeons. It’s possible there are a large, rather hidden, population of Arab students in UCD’s or Trinity College’s humanities departments but I’ve yet to hear of it.

2) The amount of book titles translated into Arabic, on an annual basis, is known to be notoriously low. The accounts I’ve read, and I admit I can’t rule out completely a degree of exaggeration being used, is that there are more books translated into Spanish on an annual basis than have been translated into Arabic in the last hundred years or more. I don’t know, and I won’t pretend otherwise, why this should be the case but I do know that this isn’t the fault of Europeans or Americans. (Farish, would you care to step up to the plate on this one? It seems you’re not interested, or are perhaps otherwise occupied, in engaging in the hand to hand combat of the comments section but perhaps you might like to take this one on in a future article.)

Whatever the explanation it hasn’t stopped Farish from completing a BA in Philosophy & Literature at the University of Sussex in 1989, before studying for an MA in Philosophy at the same University (University of Sussex) in 1990, then an MA in South-East Asian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, before completing his PhD at the University of Essex in 1997 in the field of governance and politics. Notice something here? Notice a pattern? I do and it’s not a pattern which supports any argument which advances Farish’s thesis: “The Pathologisation of Muslims As Everything That is Wrong With Europe”

Maybe we should be debating the Muslim world’s, apparent, hostility towards the humanities (this is quite overt in Iran at the moment where the regime are threatening to shut down the humanities departments within their Universities completely). Why don’t we have a chat about that? I don’t know but my best guess is that such discourse offers Farish scant opportunity to imply that the Europe which educated him, and which equipped him with his formidable rhetorical tools, is run by a pack of racists and bigots.

I know that Farish’s point was specifically made about Arabs. However I believe that having made it he could perhaps do this Arab demographic a great service by explaining how he managed to thrive in such academic environments. Maybe Farish was obstructed at every step he took. maybe his story is one of heroic triumph over adversity. A Muslim in a rather hostile “abroad.” If that’s so, I’m sure I speak for all his readers when I say, this then is a story we want to hear about. Then again maybe he didn’t. Maybe his actual experience offers little by way of supporting narrative of racism in European educational institutions. Indeed maybe he found himself in vibrant and ecumenical educational environments where all you had to bring to succeed was your intelligence and a capacity for hard work.

In any case Farish dropped a rather big accusation disguised as a casual observation. So casual that perhaps it seems rather unsporting of me to treat it so seriously. I’m sorry if that’s the impression but with so many other, and I contend, more compelling explanations than Farish’s preferred one I think he should be glad of any invitation to support his own contention.

In Egypt, of all places, where Obama was yapping that "throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

Cairo (AINA) -- Christians in Egypt are up in arms this week over a controversial book issued as a free supplement with this month's Al-Azhar magazine, describing Christianity as a Religion of "idolatry" and claiming that the Holy Bible is a misquotation of the original one. The book was published by State-owned corporations that are financed by taxpayers, Christians as well as Muslims.

The controversial book is titled "Scientific Report" and authored by Dr. Muhammad Imarah, a member of Al-Azhar's Islamic Research Academy (IRA), which is affiliated with the Ministry of Religious Endowments. The book discusses Christian dogma, casts doubts over it, and asserts that Christianity is a "religion of polytheism."More... Hat tip: Eye On The World

According to Hamas, Christian bodies "pollute the earth". What was it that Obama told us about Islam? Ah yes, "throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality."

(JPost) Every three minutes a Christian is being tortured in the Muslim world, and in 2009 more than 165,000 Christians will have been killed because of their faith, most of them in Muslim countries, according to a human rights organization that is visiting Israel starting Sunday.

Majed El Shafie, who will head a delegation of human rights activists, members of parliament from Canada and religious personalities at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem.

"Hamas digs up the bodies of Christians from Christian burial sites in the Gaza Strip claiming that they pollute the earth," said Reverend Majed El Shafie, President of One Free World International (OFWI), who will head a delegation of human rights activists, members of parliament from Canada and religious personalities.

During their visit to Israel the delegation will hold a conference on human rights and persecuted minorities at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem. The conference will provide new statistics on the persecution of minorities in Muslim countries. More... Hat tip: Eye On The World

USA: December 4, 2009. (PCP) Dottore Architetto Ashraf Ramelah, President of Coptic Voice said that Sunday, November 29, 2009 will be remembered as a turning point in the protection of our democracy and freedom. I believe that all of the West must congratulate every Swiss citizen that voted to ban the building of Minarets as well as those who agreed to allow them to be built.

This is the democracy that western women and men were brought up on prior to the introduction of political correctness, more appropriately called �shut your mouth.�

Swiss citizens as well as all westerners are in great need to sit back and analyze the facts without any exaggeration or undermining the issues. All of us have a great responsibility towards our children and grandchildren. History will remember us as a great people who fought to keep democracy and freedom, or rather, a people who were unable to protect it.

Referendum plays an important role in democracy and through democracy power is given to every citizen. The result of any referendum is sovereign, and governments are obligated to follow the desire of their citizens.

In the early 1970�s I had the opportunity to observe two important referendums in Italy. The first was in favor of divorce, the second was for abortion. Both referendums were against Catholic teaching. In spite of the fact that the Vatican is in the center of Rome, the Italian capitol, and the head of the Catholic Church is also the Bishop of the eternal city, I never heard any instigation from the Church, its leaders, or political conservatives at that time.

I grew up convinced that I could disagree with your idea but I still respect you. Arabs, on the other hand, think and act differently than this. Arab-Muslim leaders throughout the whole world condemned the Swiss referendum. Some Arab leaders instigated their followers to rise aggressively against such a decision. I am sure that we will soon read and hear about the boycott of Swiss products, and maybe Swiss embassies will be closed in some Arabs countries.

Various western voices including some Vatican officials condemned the result of that referendum. I wonder if those leaders forgot that in a democracy the power belongs to the people, or can it be that such political leaders cannot stay away from so-called political correctness. The question remains that if political correctness were really correct, would one use it to criticize the will of the people, or instead accept the outcome in spite of any disagreement.

In western society there is a tendency to please strangers without consideration to their own people. Furthermore, instead of condemning the referendum results, I was hoping that our political leaders would be more effective in putting pressure on dictatorial and fascist regimes ruling in Arab Islamic countries in order to bring democracy and freedom to those populations. How dare those Arab leaders criticize a Swiss citizen for his choice in his own homeland concerning strangers, while the same Arab leaders do not give any respect to a citizen with a different face living in his own country.

The Grand Mufti of Cairo was very angry about the result of the referendum, criticizing the Swiss people for lacking respect for freedom of religion. Wow!! I wish the Egyptian regime could give Egyptians even one-half of one percent of the freedoms that the Swiss people enjoy. I do not want to take the time to describe the 1400 year history of oppression, discrimination and political correctness that Copts have endured in their own land.

Is there any political or religious leader in all of Egypt who would be willing to stand up honestly and admit that Copts have been under siege for more than 1400 years? Is there any political leader in the West who would be willing to stand up and put aside his political correctness to demand that those who wish to build a Minaret in someone else�s home must first respect basic human rights in his own home. It is time that everything be called by its own name, without hiding the facts, and with no special privilege given to any ethnic group or religion.

On behalf of Voice of the Copts, I urge all the citizens of the European Union to promote a similar referendum in each country along with a demand to their political leaders to put pressure on those regimes in order to help the religious minority in those countries to have basic human rights, democracy and human respect.

The real issue of this referendum was the goal of putting an end to the building of Minarets (architecture) and not the banning of the construction of Mosques as Arab-Muslim leaders and those with politically correct views would have us believe. Pakistan Christian Post

Turkey’s political elite is obsessed with joining the European Union. But senior players in the EU – in a rare moment of clarity amid their delusional fantasies of a federal Europe – are reluctant to let in a country which is increasingly hard to distinguish from the rest of the Islamic world. Here’s a tip for Turkish campaigners for EU membership: if you want to win over Herman Van Rompuy, best not set up your headquarters in a building confiscated from your country’s oppressed Orthodox Christian minority.

This how the UN:Dhimmi website reports the controversy:

Unbelievable but true: the headquarters of the Secretariat for the entry of Turkey into the European Union is a building confiscated from the Orthodox Christian community in the 90s. The building is located in Istanbul, in the well-known area of Ortakoy, under the first bridge over the Bosphorus.

Before the seizure, the building was used as a primary school for children of the minority Orthodox in Ortakoy. Here once lived a thriving Orthodox community, now non-existent because of past purges against minorities, executed by the “secular” Turkish State.

And some background:

Turkey is often portrayed as a “secular” modern Muslim state. This was indeed the founding vision of the Republic’s “Father”, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, when he created the republic out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s.

However, since late 2002, when Erdoğan’s AK Party came to power, a creeping Islamisation of Turkey has been embarked upon – and the small Christian community has been subjected to increasing harassment and persecution (a social norm in Muslim countries – ask any Christian in Egypt or Pakistan, for example).

And it’s not just the government. A recent survey of Turks revealed:

More than half of Turks oppose non-Muslim religious meetings

59 percent of those surveyed said non-Muslims either “should not” or “absolutely should not” be allowed to hold open meetings where they can discuss their ideas.

54 percent said non-Muslims either “should not” or “absolutely should not” be allowed to publish literature that describes their faith.

49 percent of those surveyed said they would either “absolutely” or “most likely” not support a political party that accepted people from another religion.

The theory that these prejudices will melt away once Turkey is admitted to the EU strikes me as quite fatuous. Ask yourself: has the protective generosity of the welfare state made Islamic immigrants to Britain any more accommodating to our liberal traditions? Telegraph

How does one say hypocrisy in Ayyraab? Egyptian Government Policy of Forced Collective Deportation of Christians.

Somehow, the so called mainstream media, the UN and the ICC avoid this subject and don't see it as a flagrant violation of basic human rights.

(Persecution.org) Egypt has witnessed recently an unprecedented upsurge in sectarian violence directed against the indigenous Christian citizens. Whatever sparked the explosive incidents, whether it was rumor or fact about an 'honour crime' committed by a Christian male, renovation of an old dilapidated church, a Christian praying with relatives within his own four walls, or even an ordinary fight between two parties; one Muslim and one Christian, results in collective Muslim mob punishment of all the Christians in the region; affecting their homes, businesses, property and even their lives.

Forced deportation of Christians from their villages after Muslim violence against them is also on the increase. Deportation of Copts took place twice in the last five months following sectarian violence, in the village of Meet Barbary, in Meet Ghamr last July and in Kom Ahmar, Farshout on November 21.. The plight of those affected by the forced evictions is great, having to leave behind all what they own,and start anew somewhere strange, without any form of government compensation or aid in relocation. In all incidents they were prevented from ever being repatriated back to their homes.

More... Hat tip : Eye On The World

By Lieutenant Colonel (Rtd) Idris Hassan. I refer to the Malaysiakini report Of noisy Indians and 'keling' blood: Utusan strikes again. The attacking of fellow Malaysians by the mainstream media Utusan Malaysia because of their race is unwarranted and most uncalled for. I remember in the late forties when I was a little boy living in my hometown of Raub, Pahang.

I used to pass road gangs of Tamil labourers toiling in the midday's scorching sun from dawn till dusk. Armed with only picks and shovels, they would be hacking at solid rocks to carve out roads along the mountain side.

They had no proper attire, just a withered white towel tied in turban form on their heads. They would wrap rags around their spindly legs to prevent the hot molten tar from scalding them as they went about their chores.

Yet they had time to smile and wave at passing cars. They used to be referred to as 'coolies' and their slave-like living quarters as coolie lines. My late father used to tell us that most of the roads in Malaya at the turn of the century were built solely by Indian labour.


They toiled in the malaria-infested rubber estates, living with their families in filthy inhuman conditions. The white 'tuan' treated them like slaves and allowed them to indulge in drinking toddy to forget their woes .

Yet again it was the same coolies called 'toties' who serviced our bucket system latrines until the early sixties as there were no takers for this job from the other races. I have seen for myself these 'toties' cleaning the rubber tubs at a stream not far from my house with their bare hands.

In short, when there was any dirty, menial job to be done, it was this Tamil coolie, then often called by the derogatory term 'keling', that did it for us.

Now times have changed and their offsprings have made much progress in all fields and want to take their rightful place in our society .Let's not pour scorn on them and laugh away their pride.

As a soldier I know that many of my Indian/Tamil friends who fought and died for this country . They all are a part of those who stood by us during the good and bad times, they have helped make this country great.

A country which rightfully belongs to all Malaysians.Malaysiakini

I'm waiting to hear of some serious Arab and UN protests against this apartheid wall and brutal Egyptian blockade of Gaza, like anytime now. Just like they constantly protest against the Israeli separation wall.

(Haaretz) Egypt has begun the construction of a massive iron wall along its border with the Gaza Strip, in a bid to shut down smuggling tunnels into the territory. The wall will be nine to 10 kilometers long, and will go 20 to 30 meters into the ground, Egyptian sources said. It will be impossible to cut or melt.

And nobody whines about the hardships the Palestinians will have to endure because of this illegal separation wall.

The new plan is the latest move by Egypt to step up its counter-smuggling efforts. Although some progress had been made, the smuggling market in Gaza still flourishes.Egyptian forces demolish tunnels or fill them with gas almost every week, often with people still inside them, and Palestinian casualties in the tunnels have been steadily rising.

So the Egyptians use poison gas on Palestinians. Have anyone ever heard of Arabs accusing Egypt of crimes against humanity? Where the hell is Goldstone when you need him? Where is the International Solidarity Movement? Blatant hypocrisy again? What is it with Ayyraabs and hypocrisy? Hat tip:Eye On The World

Muslims need to look within themselves, instead of playing victims. "Saudi scholars slam Swiss minaret ban"-Gulf News by Abdul Rahman Shahee. Several prominent Saudi Islamic scholars and preachers lambasted the recent Swiss referendum to impose ban on the construction of mosque minarets in the country. This people are from a country where other religions are not allowed houses of worship and worshipping in the open could get you into serious trouble, is that not sheer hypocrisy? Carrying a cross or a crucifix could land you in the slammer. How do you say 'hyopcrisy' in Ayyraab?

Then the gall of the enemy of free speech , the Secretary General of OIC, which groups 57 Muslim countries, qualified the ban as an unfortunate development that would tarnish the image of Switzerland as a country upholding respect for diversity, freedom of religion and human rights, in that same news. Is that not hypocrisy, again? Do Ayyraabs have an inkling or understanding of the word hypocrisy? Is it in their dictionary at all, that they can condemn the Swiss with a straight face?

According to Iman Kurdi, writing in the Arab News: "And let’s not be hypocrites. If you held a referendum in a Muslim country asking whether the construction of new church steeples should be permitted, you are also likely to get an overwhelming no. So let us not brand this a Swiss phenomenon and let us also remember that it is not the majority of the Swiss population that supported the ban but the majority of those who voted, which if you do the maths comes to 30 percent of the population.”

First, it raises delicate issues of reciprocity in Muslim-Christian relations. A few examples: When Our Lady of the Rosary, Qatar's first-ever church opened in 2008, it did so minus cross, bell, dome, steeple, or signboard. Rosary's priest, Father Tom Veneracion, explained their absence: "The idea is to be discreet because we don't want to inflame any sensitivities."

What about the Church in Shah Alam, Malaysia, the Church of Divine Mercy? Remember, it took more than 20 years from 1977 to 2005 to build and it looks like a factory, religious symbols must be discreet, it is located in an industrial park. See image above.

And when the Christians of a town in Upper Egypt, Nazlet al-Badraman, finally after four years of "laborious negotiation, pleading, and grappling with the authorities," won permission in October to restore a tottering tower at the Mar-Girgis Church, a mob of about 200 Muslims attacked them, throwing stones and shouting Islamic and sectarian slogans. The situation for Copts is so bad, they have reverted to building secret churches.

Why, the Catholic Church and others are asking, should Christians suffer such indignities while Muslims enjoy full rights in historically Christian countries? The Swiss vote fits into this new spirit. Islamists, of course, reject this premise of equality; Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned his Swiss counterpart of unspecified "consequences" of what he called anti-Islamic acts, implicitly threatening to make the minaret ban an international issue comparable to the Danish cartoon fracas of 2006.

Second, Europe stands at a crossroads with respect to its Muslim population. Of the three main future prospects – everyone getting along, Muslims dominating, or Muslims rejected – the first is highly improbable but the second and third seem equally possible. In this context, the Swiss vote represents a potentially important legitimation of anti-Islamic views. The vote inspired support across Europe, as signaled by online polling sponsored by the mainstream media and by statements from leading figures. Here follows a small sampling:

France: 49,000 readers at Le Figaro, by a 73-27 percent margin, would vote to ban new minarets in their country. 24,000 readers at L'Express agreed by an 86-12 percent margin, with 2 percent undecided. A leading columnist, Ivan Rioufol of Le Figaro, wrote an article titled "Homage to the Resistance of the Swiss People." President Nicolas Sarkozy was quoted as saying that "the people, in Switzerland as in France, don't want their country to change, that it be denatured. They want to keep their identity."

Germany: 29.000 readers at Der Spiegel voted 76-21 percent, with 2 percent undecided, to ban minarets in Germany. 17,000 readers of Die Welt voted 82-16 in favor of "Yes, I feel cramped by minarets" over "No, freedom of religion is constrained."

Spain: 14,000 readers of 20 Minutos voted 93-6 percent in favor of the statement "Good, we must curb Islamization's growing presence" and against "Bad, it is an obstacle to the integration of immigrants." 35,000 readers of El Mondo replied 80-20 percent that they support a Swiss-like banning of minarets.

Although not scientific, the lop-sidedness of these (and other) polls, ranging from 73 to 93 percent majorities endorsing the Swiss referendum, signal that Swiss voters represent growing anti-Islamic sentiments throughout Europe. The new amendment also validates and potentially encourages resistance to Islamization throughout the continent.

For these reasons, the Swiss vote represents a possible turning point for European Islam. Source....

During WWII, the death camp at Treblinka had an escape, causing the Commandant at a similar camp in Sobibor to vow (actually threaten) that his camp would never experience the same thing. But those who were its captives, the Jewish laborers that had been spared from the ovens, knew that they were on borrowed time and that their only hope was to escape... the only question was how to do it. However, because the Germans would kill an equal number of others whenever a group attempted to escape, the captives knew that if ever an escape was tried, all 600 prisoners in the camp would have to be included



... logistically precluding any ideas about tunnels or sneak breakouts. Indeed, to have such a mass escape could only mean that the Ukrainian guards and Germain officers would have to be killed, which many of the Jews felt simply reduced themselves to no better than their captors... thus making it a struggle of conscience. And therein lies the story, with the film being based on a factual account of what then happened at that Sobibor prison.

Well, this was an arresting opening, to an Associated Press report: “He compared al-Qaida in Iraq to wolves, urging that the terrorist group be crushed since he believed its members would never reject violence.

But the wolves got to the Iraqi counterterrorism officer first.”That officer was Ahmed Subhi al-Fahal, killed in a suicide bombing in Tikrit (Saddam Hussein’s old bastion). Killed along with him were two bodyguards and two bystanders. Al-Fahal was in his early 30s and apparently lived to eliminate violent extremists from his country. He claimed on al-Arabiya, the TV network, that he had killed more than 250 of al-Qaeda’s finest: not a bad haul.

And, according to the AP, “he was also thrown the most difficult missions. It was al-Fahal who was called in to track down 16 prisoners — including several al-Qaida-linked inmates awaiting execution — who escaped in a stunning September jailbreak . . .”

After al-Fahal’s death, an American colonel wrote, “He was controversial, flamboyant, brave, and effective. He single-handedly disrupted numerous enemy plots during the last election . . .”

Sounds like a very useful man, and it is no wonder that al-Qaeda is rejoicing over his death. May Iraq, for the sake of its possibility of life, have many more like him. National Review

A promising, independent Palestine is quietly being developed, with Israeli assistance. By Tom Gross

It is difficult to turn on a TV or radio or pick up a newspaper these days without finding some pundit or other deploring the dismal prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace or the dreadful living conditions of the Palestinians. Even supposedly neutral news reporters regularly repeat this sad tale. “Very little is changing for the Palestinian people on the ground,” I heard BBC World Service Cairo correspondent Christian Fraser tell listeners three times in a 45-minute period the other evening.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. I had spent that day in the West Bank’s largest city, Nablus. The city is bursting with energy, life, and signs of prosperity, in a way I have not previously seen in many years of covering the region.

As I sat in the plush office of Ahmad Aweidah, the suave, British-educated banker who heads the Palestinian Securities Exchange, he told me that the Nablus stock market was the second-best-performing in the world so far in 2009, after Shanghai. (Aweidah’s office looks directly across from the palatial residence of Palestinian billionaire Munib al-Masri, the wealthiest man in the West Bank.- Mahathir, you did not know that, even if you knew, you will spin that accordingly, which is anti-semitism)

Later I met Bashir al-Shakah, director of Nablus’s gleaming new cinema, where four of the latest Hollywood hits were playing that day. Most movies were sold out, he noted, proudly adding that the venue had already hosted a film festival since it opened in June.

Wandering around downtown Nablus, the shops and restaurants I saw were full. There were plenty of expensive cars on the streets. Indeed I counted considerably more BMWs and Mercedes than I’ve seen, for example, in downtown Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.

And perhaps most important of all, we had driven from Jerusalem to Nablus without going through any Israeli checkpoints. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu has removed them all since the Israeli security services (with the encouragement and support of Pres. George W. Bush) were allowed, over recent years, to crush the intifada, restore security to the West Bank, and set up the conditions for the economic boom that is now occurring. (There was one border post on the return leg of the journey, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, but the young female guard just waved me and the two Palestinians I was traveling with through.)

The shops and restaurants were also full when I visited Hebron recently, and I was surprised to see villas comparable in size to those on the Cote d’Azur or Bel Air had sprung up on the hills around the city. Life is even better in Ramallah, where it is difficult to get a table in a good restaurant. New apartment buildings, banks, brokerage firms, luxury car dealerships, and health clubs are to be seen. In Qalqilya, another West Bank city that was previously a hotbed of terrorists and bomb-makers, the first-ever strawberry crop is being harvested in time to cash in on the lucrative Christmas markets in Europe. Local Palestinian farmers have been trained by Israeli agriculture experts and Israel supplied them with irrigation equipment and pesticides.

A new Palestinian city, Ruwabi, is to be built soon north of Ramallah. Two weeks ago, the Jewish National Fund, an Israeli charity, helped plant 3,000 tree seedlings for a forested area the Palestinian planners say they would like to develop on the edge of the new city. Israeli experts are also helping the Palestinians plan public parks and other civic amenities.

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"Turkey Objects to Assyrian Genocide Monument in Australia," from AINA, December 6:

Fairfield, Australia (AINA) -- A proposed Assyrian genocide monument has drawn the Turkish government into the debate. The monument, proposed to the NSW Parliament by MP Ninos Khoshaba, would honor the Assyrian victims of genocide in the 20th century, particularly the Turkish genocide of Assyrians in World War One, in which 750,000 (75%) Assyrians were killed between 1915 and 1918, as well as Armenians and Greeks, and the massacre of 3000 Assyrians in Simmele, Iraq in August, 1933....

Turkey's Consul General in Australia, Mr. Renan Sekeroglu, has expressed opposition to the erection of the monument and denied the genocide of Assyrians in World War One. Mr. Sekeroglu conceded there were "tragedies" on "both" sides during that period. Speaking to SBS Radio, Mr. Sekeroglu said "I am afraid that if such proposals bear fruit then it will create a climate of hostility and it will also contradict the environment of historically friendly relations between Turkey and Australia". Mr. Sekeroglu said he will lodge an objection to the proposed genocide monument with the Fairfield Council.

A spokesman for the Fairfield Council said the Council is "...taking into consideration all angles before making a decision on the 4.5 meters sculpture that looks like a hand holding up the globe." The Council will vote on the monument on December 15. Jihad Watch

Compass Direct 7 December 2009

More than Half in Turkey Oppose Non-Muslim Religious Meetings

ISTANBUL -Survey finds nearly 40 percent of population has negative view of Christians. More than half of the population of Muslim-majority. Turkey opposes members of other religions holding meetings or publishing materials to explain their faith, according to a recently issued survey. Fully 59 percent of those surveyed said non-Muslims either "should not” or "absolutely should not” be allowed to hold open meetings where they can discuss their ideas. Fifty-four percent said non-Muslims either "should not” or "absolutely should not” be allowed to publish literature that describes their faith.

The survey also found that almost 40 percent of the population of Turkey said they had "very negative” or "negative” views of Christians. In the random survey, 60 percent of those polled said there is one true religion; over 90 percent of the population of Turkey is Sunni Muslim.

Ali Çarkoglu, one of two professors at Sabanci University who conducted the study, said no non-Muslim religious gathering in Turkey is completely "risk free.” "Even in Istanbul, it can’t be easy to be an observant non-Muslim,” Çarkoglu said. The report, issued last month, was part of a study commissioned by the International Social Survey Program, a 45-nation academic group that conducts polls and research about social and political issues. The survey quantified how religious the population is in each of its 43-member countries.

Çarkoglu, along with Professor Ersin Kalayc?og(lu, carried out the research in 2008. The completed study with the results of all 43 countries will be released in 2010. The study has been conducted previously three times at roughly 10-year intervals. This year marked the first time study data has been collected in Turkey. Turkey was the only Muslim-majority population in the study. The survey includes significant nuance. While 42 percent of the population agreed with the statement that religious people should be tolerant, 49 percent of those surveyed said they would either "absolutely” or "most likely” not support a political party that accepted people from another religion. But 20 percent of those surveyed said they had "very positive” or "positive” views of Christians – 13 percent "very positive,” and 7 percent "positive.”

Çarkoglu said the results of study could be attributed to the Turkish educational system, which mandates religious studies for both junior high school and high school students – classes in which Christians and Jews "are not even mentioned” or are portrayed as "the others,” Çarkoglu said. "That instills in these students a severe point of view of intolerance,” he added.

Dual Threat
The Rev. Dositheos Anagnostopoulos, speaking on behalf of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, said that Greek Orthodox Christians are treated like second-class citizens in Turkey. He said that members of his church feel "pressured” but things have improved slowly over the years. Earlier this year, two Greek Orthodox cemeteries in Istanbul and one in Izmir were severely vandalized. "There’s still vandalism, but there haven’t been any problems with physical threats lately,” he said. In Turkey, Christians face dual threats from a self-declared "secular” state and from members of the public who, according to the study, have become more observant in their Islamic faith. Christians are often seen as enemies of the state, enemies of Islam or traitors to Turkish culture.

A 2009 report on international religious freedom by the U.S. Department of State said that in Turkey, "No law explicitly prohibits religious speech or religious conversions; nevertheless, many prosecutors and police regarded religious speech and religious activism with suspicion. Christians engaged in religious advocacy were occasionally threatened or pressured by government and state officials. … Threats against non-Muslims created an atmosphere of pressure and diminished freedom for some non-Muslim communities.” At times in Turkey’s history, the government has "manipulated public opinion” by putting forth the message that Turkish Christians are aligned with powers outside of the country that want to divide the nation, said Zekai Tanyar, a Turkish national who has been a Christian for more than 30 years. He is chairman of the Association of Protestant Churches (in Turkey).

"There are some who view that Christians are out to undermine the country, especially missionaries,” he said. In January 2007, Hrant Dink, editor-in-chief of the Armenian weekly Agos, was shot dead in Istanbul. Dink was a member of the Armenian Christian community in Turkey. Three months later, two Turkish Christians and a German Christian were murdered in Malatya. The accused killers in all four slayings have alleged links to Turkish nationalists. Two other Christians, converts from Islam, are standing trial charged with, among other things, "insulting Turkishness” and inciting hatred against Islam.

According to the U.S state department report, by law religious services in Turkey can only take place at worship sites approved by the government. And while the Sunni majority receives generous support from the government for its mosques, "[Non-Muslim groups] reported difficulties opening, maintaining, and operating houses of worship.” Tanyar of the Protestant association said that the anti-Christian persecution situation in Turkey has improved in some ways but gotten worse in others. "People have gotten used to the idea that we exist, and certain laws have changed to accommodate us,” he said. "On the other hand, acts of disinformation and violence have increased.”Europe News

Daily Pioneer 7 December 2009By Kanchan Gupta

Turkey’s Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was being faithful to his creed when he declared, "Mosques are our barracks, minarets our bayonets, domes our helmets, the believers our soldiers.” Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, a fascist Sunni imam with a huge following among those who subscribe to the Muslim Brotherhood’s antediluvian worldview, was more to the point when he thundered at an event organised by London’s then Labour mayor Ken Livingstone, "The West may have the atom bomb, we have the human bomb.”

Sheikh Qaradawi, who is of Egyptian origin, frequently exhorts Muslims not to rest till they have "conquered Christian Rome” and believes "throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the Jews people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler”. Islamic schools in Britain funded by Saudi Arabia use textbooks describing Jews as "apes” and Christians as "pigs”. Theo Van Gogh, who along with writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali produced Submission, a film on the plight of Muslim women under sharia’h, was shot dead by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim, in Amsterdam. Rallies by radical Islamists, which were once rare, are now a common feature in European capitals with banners and placards denouncing democracy as the ‘problem’ and Islam as the ‘solution’.

Such crude though accurate assertions of Islamism, coupled with the relentless jihad being waged overtly — exemplified by the London Underground bombings and the riots in Parisian suburbs — and covertly as exposed by Channel 4’s stunning investigation in its Dispatches programme titled ‘Undercover Mosque’, have now begun to raise hackles in Europe. The first signs of an incipient backlash came in the form of French President Nicolas Sarkozy demanding a ban on the burqa (the sharia’h-imposed hijab is already banned at public schools in France).

Any doubts that may have lingered about Europe’s patience with Islam’s rage boys running thin have been removed by last Sunday’s referendum in Switzerland where people have voted overwhelmingly to ban the construction of minarets which are no longer seen to be representing faith. For 57.5 per cent of Swiss citizens, the minaret, an obligatory adjunct to a mosque which is used by the muezzin to call the faithful to prayers five times a day, is now a "political symbol against integration”. They view each new minaret as marking the transmogrification of Christian Europe into Islamic Eurabia. The Islamic minaret, according to Swiss People’s Party legislator Ulrich Schluer, has come to represent the "effort to establish sharia’h on European soil”. Hence the counter-effort to ban their construction.

Last Sunday’s referendum and the massive vote against Islamic minarets is by no means an unexpected development, as is being pretended by Islamists and those who find it fashionable to defend Islamism or are scared of taking a stand lest they be accused of Islamophobia. Resentment against assertive political Islam has been building up in Switzerland for almost a decade, triggered by refugees from Yugoslavia’s many civil wars seeking to irreversibly change the Swiss way of life to suit their twisted notions of Islam’s supremacy.

For the past many years the Swiss People’s Party and the Federal Democratic Union, both avowedly right-of-centre organisations, have been trying to initiate an amendment to Article 72 of Switzerland’s Constitution to include the sentence, "The building of minarets is prohibited.” After doing the cantonal rounds, both the parties set up a joint Egerkinger Committee in 2007 to take their campaign to the federal level. The November 29 referendum is the outcome of that campaign.

The resultant vote — 57.5 per cent endorsing the proposed amendment to the Constitution with 42.5 opposing it — provides some interesting insights. For instance, the Swiss Government and Parliament, which are opposed to the amendment, clearly suffer from a disconnect with the Swiss masses. The voting pattern also shows that the spurious ‘cosmopolitan spirit’ of Zurich, Geneva and Basel, where people voted against the ban by a narrow margin, is not shared by most Swiss.

The initiative has got 19.5 of the 23 cantonal votes — Basel city Canton, with half-a-vote and the largest Muslim population in Switzerland, barely defeated the initiative with 51.61 per cent people voting against it. This only goes to show that the Left-liberal intelligentsia may dominate television studio debates, as is often seen in our country, but it neither influences public opinion nor persuades those whose perception of the reality is not cluttered by bogus ‘tolerance’ of the intolerant.

Daniel Pipes, who is among the few scholars of Islam not scared to be labelled an ‘Islamophobe’, is of the view that the Swiss vote "represents a turning point for European Islam, one comparable to the Rushdie affair of 1989. That a large majority of Swiss who voted on Sunday explicitly expressed anti-Islamic sentiments potentially legitimates such sentiments across Europe and opens the way for others to follow suit”.

As always, Pipes is prescient. An opinion poll conducted by the French Institute for Public Opinion after the Swiss referendum shows 46 per cent of French citizens are in favour of banning the construction of minarets, 40 per cent support the idea, while 14 per cent are indecisive. "That it was the usually quiet, low profile, un-newsworthy, politically boring, neutral Swiss who suddenly roared their fears about Islam only enhances their vote’s impact,” says Pipes. The post-referendum opinion poll in France shows that one in two French citizens would not only like to see minarets banned, but along with them mosques, too.

Yet, it may be too early to suggest that the tide of Islamism will now have to contend with the fury of a backlash. Governments and organisations that find merit in toeing the line of least resistance have reacted harshly to the Swiss vote; rather than try and understand why more and more people are beginning to loathe, if not hate, Islamism, a case is being made all over again for the need to be tolerant with those whose sole desire is to subjugate the world to Islam.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Navi Pillay, who is yet to utter a word about the suppression of freedom and denial of dignity in Islamic countries or the shocking violation of human rights by jihadis, has been scathing in her response, describing the Swiss vote as "a discriminatory, deeply divisive and thoroughly unfortunate step”. The Organisation of Islamic Conference has warned that the vote will "serve to spread hatred and intolerance towards Muslims”. The OIC’s complaint would carry credibility if it were to demand tolerance towards non-Muslims in its member-countries, especially Saudi Arabia, and denounce Islam’s preachers of hate. Europe News

(An expanded version of this article can be read at http://kanchangupta.blogspot.com/) -- Follow the writer on: http://twitter.com/KanchanGupta. Blog on this and other issues at http://kanchangupta.blogspot.com/. Write to him at kanchangupta@rocketmail.com

On the surface it might seem that Switzerland's law-binding vote to ban new minarets in mosques is petty, vindictive and unnecessary. And in a sense it is, but in another way it is understandable. It's pretty hard to depict Switzerland as a red-necked, xenophobic society. It is one of the few countries in the world that demands no passport for visitors entering, and it's famous for being a meeting place of cultures.

It is a functioning society that manages to exist without wars, nasty linguistic or ethnic feuds. It is a society that flourishes peacefully in times of war in other countries. It is a country where every male is expected to own a gun and knows how to use it. A country where gun crimes are rare.

All the Swiss seem to demand from people is they behave decently, obey the law, adapt to the Swiss way of life. It is not a country spoiling for trouble, which is why the vote to ban new minarets is more significant than, say, if it occurred in a country beset with Islamic militancy -- a condition that has been growing in Europe.

The Swiss, basically, want to keep their country Swiss.

They don't want Sharia law, even a modified version as dingbat democracies like the McGuinty government in Ontario once favoured in the name of cultural equivalency -- until saner heads prevailed. (As an aside, many of these "saner heads" were Muslim women who've escaped the tyranny of Sharia in their birth countries, and Muslim men who see its oppressiveness). Switzerland is not a country like any other. The cantons that comprise the whole are more important and influential than the central government. It is a country of four regions with four languages -- German, French, Italian and Romansh, with English the language of air controllers.

The world comes together in Switzerland in the form of international organizations and banks, and it values its neutrality (since 1815) and guards its continuing democracy. Prior to the minaret vote, polls indicated 53% of the people opposed banning minarets, which on voting day turned into 57% in favour of the ban. Even the Swiss tell pollsters what they think pollsters want to hear.

Swiss are uneasy about their culture and don't want their landscape dotted with minarets from which the Islamic faithful are called to prayer. Odd, because of Switzerland's 150 mosques, only four have minarets. Non-Muslims -- which is 94% of the 7.5 million population -- are not keen on being roused by sing-song calls for the faithful to pray, should minarets sprout on all mosques. Now there's some fear of a Muslim backlash in Switzerland. Blame for all this is not Swiss prejudice, but Islamic militancy in countries like the Netherlands, Denmark, France, and world-wide awareness that while most Muslims are not terrorists, most terrorists are Muslim.

SILENT TOO LONG

In their way, the vast majority of moderate Muslims are victims of jihadism and Islamic extremism that has poisoned relations. Yet the moderate majority has been too silent for too long. Canada has been fortunate in escaping extremism, as has Switzerland, but there is growing unease about the future here, as there is in Europe's most neutral and tolerant country. One hopes Muslims, who are not monolithic in their attitudes, speak up and take a lead in opposing extremism which threatens the future. Source..

The bootlicker of UMNO Wong Chun Wai, writes his column titled "Swiss in the doghouse". Scoring points eh, Wong? Many people have demolished his arguement many a time. Look into Malaysia itself, it is a disgrace as far as freedom of religion is concerned and along with 56 other OIC countries. No amount of spin, Wong, will get you out of the dog house.The Swiss are a democracy. Then the "great" Farish spins with his The Pathologisation of Muslims As Everything That is Wrong With Europe.

Here is how Muslim countries screw their minorities, read here It is okay for Muslim countries to ban bibles and trash their minorities...not okay for a Christian (Switzerland) country to ban minarets and here, The Problem of Islamic Religious Persecution. Minarets are a Symbol of Faith & Power. Here is how and why, After the Ottoman Sultan, Fatih Mehmet conquered the Byzantine capital of Constantinople in May 1453, one of his first acts was to order a wooden minaret added to the 900-year-old church of Hagia Sophia to signal its conversion into a mosque. The temporary wooden minaret was soon rebuilt in stone and three others added for good measure. As Mehmet and his successors built other mosques in their new capital, Istanbul’s skyline came to be punctuated by dozens of slender, arrow-like minarets that gave the Ottoman capital a distinctive aspect and signaled to all that it was no longer the capital of Christian Byzantium but the new capital of an Islamic empire. Well, the West has yet to reconquer Contantinople? Remember Spain and the reconquista?

I am not as good as this lady, but she is definitely better than Wong or Farish. Listen to her rationale on the ban of the minarets. She is an ex-Muslim, I will not even talk about Lina Joy and the freedom to chose one's faith in Malaysia.The Malaysian Foreign Minister, needs to read alot.

In the battle of ideas, symbols are important.

What if the Swiss voters were asked in a referendum to ban the building of an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles as a symbol of the belief of a small minority? Or imagine a referendum on building towers topped with a hammer and sickle – another symbol dear to the hearts of a very small minority in Switzerland. Political ideas have symbols: A swastika, a hammer and sickle, a minaret, a crescent with a star in the middle (usually on top of a minaret) all represent a collectivist political theory of supremacy by one group over all others.

On controversial issues, the Swiss listen to debate, read newspapers, and otherwise investigate when they make up their minds for a vote. What Europeans are finding out about Islam as they investigate is that it is more than just a religion. Islam offers not only a spiritual framework for dealing with such human questions as birth, death, and what ought to come after this world; it prescribes a way of life.

Islam is an idea about how society should be organized: the individual's relationship to the state; that the relationship between men and women; rules for the interaction between believers and unbelievers; how to enforce such rules; and why a government under Islam is better than a government founded on other ideas. These political ideas of Islam have their symbols: the minaret, the crescent; the head scarf, and the sword.

The minaret is a symbol of Islamist supremacy, a token of domination that came to symbolize Islamic conquest. It was introduced decades after the founding of Islam. In Europe, as in other places in the world where Muslims settle, the places of worship are simple at first. All that a Muslim needs to fulfill the obligation of prayer is a compass to indicate the direction of Mecca, water for ablution, a clean prayer mat, and a way of telling the time so as to pray five times a day in the allocated period.

The construction of large mosques with extremely tall towers that cost millions of dollars to erect are considered only after the demography of Muslims becomes significant. The mosque evolves from a prayer house to a political center. Imams can then preach a message of self-segregation and a bold rejection of the ways of the non-Muslims. Men and women are separated; gays, apostates and Jews are openly condemned; and believers organize around political goals that call for the introduction of forms of sharia (Islamic) law, starting with family law.

This is the trend we have seen in Europe, and also in other countries where Muslims have settled. None of those Western academics, diplomats, and politicians who condemn the Swiss vote to ban the minaret address, let alone dispute, these facts. In their response to the presence of Islam in their midst, Europeans have developed what one can discern as roughly two competing views. The first view emphasizes accuracy. Is it accurate to equate political symbols like those used by Communists and Nazis with a religious symbol like the minaret and its accessories of crescent and star; the uniforms of the Third Reich with the burqa and beards of current Islamists?

If it is accurate, then Islam, as a political movement, should be rejected on the basis of its own bigotry. In this view, Muslims should not be rejected as residents or citizens. The objection is to practices that are justified in the name of Islam, like honor killings, jihad, the we-versus-they perspective, the self-segregation. In short, Islamist supremacy. The second view refuses to equate political symbols of various forms of white fascism with the symbols of a religion. In this school of thought, Islamic Scripture is compared to Christian and Jewish Scripture. Those who reason from this perspective preach pragmatism. According to them, the key to the assimilation of Muslims is dialogue. They are prepared to appease some of the demands that Muslim minorities make in the hope that one day their attachment to radical Scripture will wear off like that of Christian and Jewish peoples.

These two contrasting perspectives correspond to two quite distinct groups in Europe. The first are mainly the working class. The second are the classes that George Orwell described as "indeterminate." Cosmopolitan in outlook, they include diplomats, businesspeople, mainstream politicians, and journalists. They are well versed in globalization and tend to focus on the international image of their respective countries. With every conflict between Islam and the West, they emphasize the possible backlash from Muslim countries and how that will affect the image of their country.

By contrast, those who reject the ideas and practices of political Islam are in touch with Muslims on a local level. They have been asked to accept Muslim immigrants as neighbors, classmates, colleagues – they are what Americans would refer to as Main Street. Here is the great paradox of today's Europe: that the working class, who voted for generations for the left, now find themselves voting for right-wing parties because they feel that the social democratic parties are out of touch.

The pragmatists, most of whom are power holders, are partially right when they insist that the integration of Muslims will take a very long time. Their calls for dialogue are sensible. But as long as they do not engage Muslims to make a choice between the values of the countries that they have come to and those of the countries they left, they will find themselves faced with more surprises. And this is what the Swiss vote shows us. This is a confrontation between local, working-class voters (and some middle-class feminists) and Muslim immigrant newcomers who feel that they are entitled, not only to practice their religion, but also to replace the local political order with that of their own.

Look carefully at the reactions of the Swiss, EU and UN elites. The Swiss government is embarrassed by the outcome of the vote. The Swedes, who are currently chairing EU meetings, have condemned the Swiss vote as intolerant and xenophobic. It is remarkable that the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, said in public that the Swiss vote is a poor act of diplomacy. What he overlooks is that this is a discussion of Islam as a domestic issue. It has nothing to do with foreign policy.

The Swiss vote highlights the debate on Islam as a domestic issue in Europe. That is, Islam as a set of political and collectivist ideas. Native Europeans have been asked over and over again by their leaders to be tolerant and accepting of Muslims. They have done that. And that can be measured a) by the amount of taxpayer money that is invested in healthcare, housing, education, and welfare for Muslims and b) the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who are knocking on the doors of Europe to be admitted. If those people who cry that Europe is intolerant are right, if there was, indeed, xenophobia and a rejection of Muslims, then we would have observed the reverse. There would have been an exodus of Muslims out of Europe.

There is indeed a wider international confrontation between Islam and the West. The Iraq and Afghan wars are part of that, not to mention the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians and the nuclear ambitions of Iran. That confrontation should never be confused with the local problem of absorbing those Muslims who have been permitted to become permanent residents and citizens into European societies.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of "Infidel," is the Somali-born women's rights advocate and former Dutch parliamentarian. Her forthcoming book is entitled "Nomad." Christian Science Monitor

Paris (AsiaNews) - The outcome of the Swiss referendum has aroused a wave of inquiries and questions on the Internet and in print, with reactions, sometimes very violent, sometimes more favourable. Typically politicians have reacted negatively, criticizing this vote. Instead, people in Europe have been in favour of the outcome. Some sites and European newspapers have thus voted:

Polls in Europe

In France, the newspaper Le Monde carried out a survey: "To hold a referendum like that of Switzerland is a sign of democracy or irresponsibility? 61.5% said it was a sign of democracy, 33.2% said it was irresponsible, to 5.3% no opinion.

L’Express posed another question: If the same referendum was held in France what would you answer? 86% answered yes, against the minarets, 11% no, 2% did not respond.

Le Figaro, which leans to the right: 77% yes to the ban, 23% no.

BFM, a television, reported these results: 75% yes, 25% no.

Radio Montecarlo 83% yes, 17% no; Euronews, which is to the left, 70% yes, 29% no, 1% do not know.

Le Soir in Belgium: 63.2% yes, 34% no; 2.8 without opinion.

In Spain,"Twenty minutes": 94% yes, 6% no. El Mundo: 79% yes, 21% no (with 25 thousand people surveyed).

In Germany, Die Welt online: 87% yes, 12% no, 2% do not know. In Austria, Die Presse: 54% yes, 46% no. Is the closest of all surveys.

In Italy I have seen only "Leggo" that gives 84.4% to the yes vote; 13.6% no, 2% do not know.

Nando Pagnoncelli, IPSOS director, said however that "in general the issue of Islam and immigration is causing concern and in some cases social alarm, because there is a perception of fanaticism". If there were a referendum like the Swiss, the voices are largely in favour of the ban.

In Holland Elzevier reported 86% yes, 16% no.

This gives a picture - perhaps not a perfect one but certainly an interesting one – of a reaction of fear widespread across Europe in the face of danger that comes from Islam. And there is also an act of courage of those who dare to say "enough" despite the propaganda of politicians and the threat of divisions that it has revealed. Commenting on the vote, Dr. Issam Mujahid, spokesman for the Muslim community of Brescia, said: "It 'a vote of fear," but he also added, "and we are all responsible."

Some thoughts on these data

This referendum can become a positive opportunity for us to reflect together. "Now, says Issam Mujahid, we must and we can assume our responsibility to work for dialogue among civilizations and reject the thesis of a clash of civilisations".

1. People in Europe do not reject the minaret to defend Christianity. Is not a religious problem: it is a problem of culture and visibility.

2. People feel that if they says yes to the minaret, tomorrow the call to prayer will also become widespread, then the microphones, then there will be requests for halal meat in school cafeterias or hospitals, then working breaks for the five prescribed daily prayers (as they tried to do with me at the University of Birmingham in 1991 when I taught there) ... Every now and then Muslims make fresh requests, which grow more and more insistent in places and countries, bringing new demands. And once they obtain a license to behave as they want they never turn back. Muslim groups have yet to be seen stopping their requests at some point. And that makes the Europeans think.

3. If we look at the situation of immigrants, only a little more than a third come from Muslim regions. Two thirds from other areas (Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America). Yet this third is the most discussed because it continually makes religious-cultural demands: The Vietnamese, Chinese, Indians, non-Islamic Africans, Latinos do not stake these claims or have this cultural visibility.

What is the problem?

4. Europe is discovering, with the presence of other cultures that itself has its own culture. The Italian reaction against the Strasbourg decision to abolish the crucifix in public places emphasizes the defence of an element of culture (as well as the religion of many). This rediscovery of culture is essential for dialogue. Muslims come with a strong sense of religious cultural identity because these two fields are not divided in the Islamic world. Europeans, who are the majority, however, find it difficult to say what their identity is. Now, there can be no real dialogue if a partner has a strong identity and the other weak one, or even if both partners are weak. Dialogue may be harder when both have a strong identity, but it is also richer and more valid!

5. On the other hand, Issam Mujahid says, “the culture of Muslim civil society organizations is lacking in Europe. In Europe, Islam is only represented by mosques. And this is wrong". Integrated Muslims in Europe do not help the immigrant Muslim community to integrate the values of European culture. For their part, imams are often not able to transmit these values, because they themselves have not received them.

6. The sense of the Swiss vote could be summed up as': "We no longer want to protect cultural diversity and guarantee religious freedom by submitting ourselves to the intolerance of Islam ... which in turn does not tolerate cultural diversity and religious freedom". Establish a true inter-cultural dialogue

This is an opportunity for Muslims to say what is really important in their faith and their culture and what is missing here in Europe. Certainly, the Muslim can not demand everything he had at home because he is living in another country that has its own laws, rules, customs, etc.. In doing so, we will see if it is possible to establish some directives at national, private or individual levels.

On the European side is time to ask ourselves what defines us and makes us who we really are.

Islam must renew itself, trying to distinguish between the essential and the occasional, and the West must also deepen its own sense of self and see what is essential to their own identity.

Take for example the veil

It is a precept, but it does not mean that it is essential. Many great Muslim authors have written about this. Gamal al-Banna, the younger brother of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, has written a book and several articles to say that the veil is not a requirement. It was at first a council given to wives of Muhammad, it is not clear whether this was for all women. Neither is it clear whether it is called for in a given situation or forever.

This is why up to 50 years ago in the Islamic world, the veil was almost disappeared from countries such as Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, etc.. and no imam ever cried shame. Over the past 30 years it has started to come out again and today it has almost become an obligation. Muslims, throughout the course of history have made the distinction between what is fundamental and what is secondary. Even regarding prayer: very few Muslims pray 5 times a day. Increasingly we are seeing that the Muslim community is rejecting imposed religion and respects those who, while believers, do not practice. Religious freedom is the foundation of all freedoms, and if the Muslims demand it for themselves, and rightly so, in Europe, then they must give it to non-Muslims in Muslim countries.

The effort of exegesis and hermeneutics lies in discerning whether something is important or if it is something special, valid only for that time. Many Muslims attempt this exegesis, but the problems are many: there is no established doctrine, there is no teaching authority, an authority that decides and settles controversial issues. Asia News