RUTHFULLY YOURS

Those calling for a Muslim reformation are overlooking the consequences of the revolt that Martin Luther prompted against Rome. Were Islam to replicate that upheaval, as many seem to wish, the world would be convulsed for bloody centuries to come.
Martin Luther unleashed his attack on the monolithic Catholic Church exactly 499 years ago on All Saints Eve Now (now popularly known as Halloween) when he nailed his 95 theological theses on the Church door of Wittenberg. Now, as we approach the quincentenary of that momentous event it is possible to gain some long-term perspective on its essential nature and impact on modern history. In particular, it is an ideal time to explore the grim implications of such a religious upheaval for the crisis of Islam, which is engulfing much of the world in the same type of internecine and sectarian violence that characterized the epochal upheaval that convulsed Christian Europe.

Continually there are demands for Islam to undergo its own ‘reformation’ akin to that endured by the West half a millennium ago. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s polemic, Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now (2015), exemplifies this campaign, envisaging a reformed Islam akin to liberal Christianity in its capacity to accommodate the modern world. She states the case against the savagery of fundamentalist Islamism in a defiant and optimistic fashion, drawing great encouragement from the various calls for reform that were manifest in the Muslim world during the so-called Arab Spring. Equally optimistic calls come from Muslim intellectuals who imagine that Muslims around the world could band together to overthrow Muslim despots, reject Sharia law, establish new liberal constitutions, and deploy diaspora Muslims living in Western countries like Australia as “ambassadors [to] educate their non-Muslim neighbours about the peaceful, compassionate and sharing nature of Islam in order to bring Muslims and non-Muslims closer together”.

Tragically, much of this is fanciful. In their enthusiasm, these commentators have imposed an idealised vision of the rationalism of the 18th century Enlightenment upon the brutal religious passions of the 16th century Reformation. Moreover, there seems to be little evidence that the contemporary despots, theocrats, and jihadists that dominate the Muslim world will relinquish their wealth and power or give up on their apocalyptic dreams of global conquest. Moreover, these Muslim leaders and their many supporters are heirs to an ancient intellectual counter-revolution that diverted Islam away from the rationalism that facilitated the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment in the West. Instead they embrace a theological obscurantism that Robert R. Reilly has carefully analysed in The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis (2010). As I have observed:

“Reilly details how the emerging religion of Islam initially embraced the rationality and scientific orientation of the Hellenic world to which it was a successor before it abruptly turned its back on this heritage and embraced a quite primitive form of theological irrationalism. The resulting world-view fundamentally undermined Islam’s capacity to embrace science, democracy and economic development down to the present day.”

Nothing has changed: Islam remains constitutionally unable to embrace the open society that the West enjoys. Instead Islamists and other devotees of ultra-reactionary Saudi-backed Salafi fundamentalism are vigorously seeking to reassert this medieval theological irrationalism throughout the Muslim world. They are never going to yield to calls for reform.

Nor is there any likelihood that the backward-looking Muslim diaspora exploiting the welfare states of the West will rise to the challenge, contest this obscurantism, and modernize Islam, perhaps transforming it into something akin to liberal Christianity by capitulating abjectly to secular consumerism, political correctness, Green-Left ideology, and becoming a Uniting Church of Islam. Such suggestions are preposterous, as these diaspora are largely funded and controlled by Salafists, as part of the ‘Arabization of Islam’. Consequently, Western Muslims, protected by their political front men and cultural quislings in the media and academia, are far more likely to develop and entrench their enclaves and no-go areas in the cities of the West where they can enforce the more brutal and benighted aspects of Salafist Islam. This is especially the case with their womenfolk, with radical Muslim intellectuals even prepared to defend honour killings. As their reticence to take a stand against jihadism and their eagerness to claim victimhood reveals, they are more likely to be part of the problem than part of the solution.

In fact, the Reformation that Ali and other commentators want the Islamic world to emulate offers lessons diametrically opposed to their optimism. To begin with, it didn’t establish the separation between church and state: various theocratic Protestant regimes were established in Europe and North America, Henry VIII made the Monarch head of the Church of England, and religious orthodoxy was brutally enforced through capital punishment, including innumerable burnings at the stake. Subsequently, church and state battled for supremacy for centuries after the Reformation.

The discourse of “Islamophobia,” and this petition, are nothing more than a continuation of the efforts of Islamists to silence their critics as they advance their own political agenda.

The Liberal Party of Canada appears to have been infiltrated by a variety of individuals who are supporters of Islamist extremism. This is beginning to look like a classic case of political entryism.

In 2016, Prime Minister Trudeau chose not to observe any official 9/11 memorial ceremony to honour the Canadians who died that day. However, the very next day, he attended the Ottawa Main Mosque which has multiple links to extremism. This despite recent stories in Canada about extremism in mosques and schools in Canada.

It was the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan Banna, who stated that “It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated; to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”

Samer Majzoub from Quebec has initiated an official Government of Canada petition to the House of Commons. The sponsor of the petition is Liberal Member of Parliament Frank Baylis. The petition calls upon the government to condemn all forms of Islamophobia.

Samer Majzoub self identifies as being part of multiple Islamist (extremist) organization in Quebec, including the (in)famous Al-Rawdaw Mosque[1] and the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC). MAC itself states that they follow the teachings of Hassan Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood. ­­ If there was any doubt, a senior member of MAC, Dr. El-Tantawi Attia, made it clear when he stated: “Here we follow the teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The Muslim Brotherhood is listed as a terrorist group in many countries in the Middle East, while a recent UK government report states that the Muslim Brotherhood

“have a highly ambiguous relationship with violent extremism. Both as an ideology and as a network it has been a rite of passage for some individuals and groups who have gone on to engage in violence and terrorism.”

The Muslim Association of Canada itself has been identified in Canadian Senate testimony as being a Muslim Brotherhood front group.

Accusations of racism and “Islamophobia” are the sword and shield of extremist Islam in the West. It makes excellent use of the concept of perpetual victimhood. The motto of the Muslim Brotherhood is:

“Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

The number one reason British “Leave” voters backed Brexit was for self-determination. — Mega-poll by Lord Ashcroft.

Every time a social problem arises, one can randomly assign blame to a host country for not providing enough social support to newcomers. That benchmark, however, creates a shifting goalpost: how much is “enough”?

Mayor Sadiq Khan focused only on what Britain should provide to newcomers not on what newcomers should initiate on their own to fit into a country they entered willingly.

Mayor Khan’s presentation seemed designed to pacify Westerners and enable the spread of the rule of Islam.

Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, addressed the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA) on September 15. Although his topic was “The Breakdown of Social Integration – The Challenge of Our Age,” some crucial components of that challenge were notably absent from his presentation.

Even though Mayor Khan said he believes that, “London is the powerhouse” for his country and is “proud that London was the only region in England to vote to remain in the European Union” (some boroughs voted 80% “Remain”), when it came to the United Kingdom as a whole, he said that “my side” lost the referendum.

That strikes one as an odd way for the mayor of any city to talk. Isn’t he the Mayor of all of London? Aren’t the Londoners who voted for Brexit included on his “side”?
Brexit Voters Want Self-Determination

Mayor Khan claimed that for “Leave” voters, “immigration was the number one issue.” However, Lord Ashcroft’s mega-poll says otherwise. According to it, the number one issue for “Leave” (pro-Brexit) voters across Britain was “the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK.”

Another question raised is that while the State Department has long warned American citizens against traveling to Iran, why do some dual nationals, primarily Iranian-Americans, continue to travel to Iran for business or other reasons?

The Iranian government has learned that arresting dual nationals and Iranian-Americans not only can lead to the flow of billions of dollars to Iran, but also can ratchet up Iran’s political leverage against the US and Western allies.

President Obama is dangerously encouraging the Iranian leaders’ detaining and arresting dual nationals to extort money and play hardball.

Iran is not only detaining and arresting more Iranian-Americans, but also boasting about it and publicly asking for more money to release them.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pointed out recently: “We should wait and see, the U.S. will offer … many billions of dollars to release” two particular Iranian-American businessman, Siamak Namazi and his father Baquer Namazi.

According to Alex Shirazi’s nuanced profile, Siamak Namazi was one of the intellectual architects of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), which has been accused of lobbying for the Iranian regime and pursuing policies that benefit themselves and the Iranian regime. Accordingly, the organization was founded “as a way to continuously lobby for the removal of sanctions against Iran and to promote Iran’s foreign policy, while combating the pro-Israel sentiment in America, according to documents from a Cyprus convention that featured the two men.”

Mr. Namazi worked for Iran’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning from 1994 to 1996. He also joined a company in Tehran called Atieh Bahar Consulting (AB), which was founded by Pari Namazi and her husband, Bijan Khajehpour.

The Tehran-based Atieh Bahar Consulting “offered a range of legal and industrial services to foreign enterprises, most importantly the access it provided to the [Iranian] regime, and the advice it dispensed on how best to navigate the vagaries of the regime’s entrenched factions and competitive interests.”

Children in this world do not dream about becoming doctors, pilots or engineers; an entire generation of Palestinians, particularly those in the Gaza Strip, has been raised on the glorification of suicide bombers and anyone who kills a Jew.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other radical groups see children as future “soldiers” in the war to eliminate Israel. They raise children to regard to suicide bombers and jihadis as role models.

This form of child abuse does not seem to bother human rights organizations or UNICEF, whose declared goal is to “work for a world in which every child has a fair chance in life and a right to survive, thrive and fulfill their potential…” UNICEF apparently does not believe its mandate extends to Palestinian children, who are exploited to serve the interests of Islamist groups.

In the view of human rights organizations, recruiting Palestinian children to the ranks of Islamist terror groups does not constitute child abuse.

What is the world prepared to do in order to combat this child abuse? UNICEF and other international bodies may not have time to deal with such issues at present, because they are too busy thinking about the next resolution to condemn Israel.

Children have long become an integral part of “military” parades held in the Gaza Strip by various Palestinian groups. But this form of child abuse does not seem to bother human rights organizations or the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), whose declared goal is to “work for a world in which every child has a fair chance in life and a right to survive, thrive and fulfill their potential — to the benefit of a better world.” It seems that UNICEF does not believe that its mandate extends to Palestinian children, who are exploited to serve the interests of Islamist groups.

In the Gaza Strip, children are taught not only to hate Israel, but also to prepare themselves for jihad (holy war) against the “Zionist enemy.” Hamas, the Islamic Jihad Movement, and other radical groups see children as future “soldiers” in the war to eliminate Israel. They raise children to regard suicide bombers and jihadis as role models.

Children in this world do not dream about becoming doctors, pilots or engineers. Rather, they dream of destroying Israel and “liberating Palestine.” In fact, an entire generation of Palestinians, particularly those in the Gaza Strip, has been raised on the glorification of suicide bombers and anyone who kills a Jew. With enough sacrifices, they are taught, the destruction of Israel is not a far-fetched dream. They alone embody the future hope of the Palestinians to see Israel removed from the face of the earth. Forget becoming a physician: their job is to continue what their fathers failed to achieve.

All the while, both local and international human rights organizations look the other way. In their view, recruiting Palestinian children to the ranks of Islamist terror groups does not constitute child abuse.

Yet not only human rights groups turn a blind eye to this child abuse. The Palestinian Authority (PA), which relies heavily on Western donors for its survival, has also chosen to bury its head in the sand regarding this disturbing practice, which has become widespread in the Gaza Strip in recent years.