Nonie Darwish
We are going to have an explosive breakdown of the clownish Nonie Darwish, another charlatan akin to Wafa Sultan who is milking the Islamophobic cash cow for all it’s worth. Jim Holstun, a professor at SUNY Buffalo wrote this great piece in 2008 that lays bear Nonie’s excessive Islamophobia, as well as her contradictions and lies.
Nonie Darwish and the al-Bureij Massacre
StandWithUs is a Zionist advocacy group in Los Angeles. It concentrates on US colleges and universities, offering fellowships, book donations, lectures, training and hands-on activism. I first heard about the group in 2005, after its Executive Director, Roz Rothstein, wrote my university’s president, provost and Arts and Sciences dean to warn them that I was teaching courses in Palestinian culture. She passed along some hysterical libels from anonymous community members (not my students), gave a detailed critique of my syllabuses, encouraged them to investigate me and two other colleagues, and helpfully suggested a few questions they might want to ask.
StandWithUs manages an impressive stable of Zionist speakers, including several who are Arabs, Muslims, or ex-Muslims: Brigitte Gabriel, Ishmael Khaldi, Walid Shoebat, Khaled Abu Toameh, and Nonie Darwish. Darwish, born an Egyptian Muslim, now an American Evangelical Christian, is one of the most energetic. She manages the website Arabs for Israel and has appeared on FOX News, on the website Frontpage Magazine, and in the film Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West. She is also the author of Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror. Penguin Books publishes it under its Sentinel imprint — a special line of conservative titles. Since her book’s publication in 2006, Darwish has toured extensively, speaking primarily at colleges and universities.
Now They Call Me Infidel has blurbs from all the usual crew: Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, Robert Spencer, Bat Ye’Or, former Senator Rick Santorum, Representative Tom “Nuke Mecca” Tancredo, and General Paul Vallely, who advocates the final ethnic cleansing of all Palestinian citizens of Israel. In the book itself, Darwish interweaves stories of her Egyptian girlhood with potted accounts of female genital mutilation, arranged marriages, polygamy, veiling, domestic abuse, honor killings, sharia law, jihad, censorship, hate-oriented education, the rejection of modernity, the cult of martyrdom, Islamic imperialism, and the pathological, groundless hatred of Israel.
In her interviews and in her book, she insists that she is not anti-Arab or anti-Islamic, and even suggests from time to time that she is still a Muslim. Then she pivots nimbly and attacks “the Arab mind,” “the seething Arab street,” and “the Muslim world,” with its “culture of jihad,” “culture of death,” and “culture of envy.” There are “no real distinctions between moderate or radical Muslims,” and no significant differences within or among Arab or Muslim cultures: for Darwish, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s secular Arab nationalism was essentially jihadist. Darwish is allergic to social history: “I realized that the Arab-Israeli conflict is not a crisis over land, but a crisis of hate, lack of compassion, ingratitude, and insecurity.” Instead of history, scholarship, and footnotes, she gives us a watered-down version of Raphael Patai’s The Arab Mind: a dictionary of Islamophobic commonplaces underwritten by the authority of an ex-Muslim native informant: I was there — I know.
Darwish’s portraits of Israel and of the US, to which she emigrated in 1978, are diametrically opposite but equally fatuous: Israeli Jews are tolerant, pragmatic, and peace-loving. From 1967 to 1982, they made the Sinai bloom. Americans are honest, charitable, industrious, self-sufficient, intellectually curious, and benevolent toward the foreign nations to whom they bring liberty. They err only in their excess of credulous goodness: because of “the simplicity of American values such as truthfulness,” they risk falling prey to duplicitous jihadist immigrants and dangerous professors, who “indoctrinate American young people with the radical Muslim agenda.”
Her outsider’s view of America complements her insider’s view of the Arab and Muslim world, for imperial states want not only other people’s land and labor, but their love. Here, we may compare Now They Call Me Infidel not only to recent anti-Islamic conversion narratives like Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel (her conversion was to neoconservative atheism and the American Enterprise Institute), but to earlier works in the genre. In her 1964 Editions Gallimard autobiography, O mes soeurs musulmanes, pleurez! (O My Muslim Sisters, Weep!), Zoubeida Bittari recounts her escape from Algerian Muslim patriarchy to French Christian bliss as a domestic servant to a Pied-Noir family; Nonie Darwish finds friends, family, and faith in southern California, including a Republican women’s group, an American husband, and Christian fellowship in Pastor Dudley Rutherford’s Shepherd of the Hills Church. As Bittari helped French colons feel better about their ungratefully rebuffed civilizing mission in Algeria, so Darwish helps Americans feel better about the long and bumpy road to global democratization.
There are occasional flashes of something more individual and authentic in Darwish’s book. For instance, her reiterated heartfelt attack on Nasser’s rent control laws (her mother lived partly off of her Cairo rentals) helps us understand why she feels so much more at home in southern California, where she arrived with enough money to buy a house with a swimming pool. But as a whole, the book is tedious, predictable, and badly edited — born to be bought, scanned and displayed, not actually read. But this will not diminish the demand for Darwish as a lecturer, which derives not from her writing but from her parentage: her father was Colonel Mustafa Hafez, head of Egyptian army intelligence in the Gaza Strip in the early ’50s, who was killed by an Israeli letter bomb in July 1956. Every lecture notice, every interview, even the title page of her book announces her as “a Muslim Shahid’s Daughter.”
Throughout her book, Darwish struggles to maintain love and loyalty both to the father she lost at age eight and to the Israeli state that killed him. In a parting flourish, she says that “My father — and potentially my whole family — was sent to his death in Gaza by Nasser, who was consumed by his desire to destroy Israel,” and she fondly imagines him surviving and flying with assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to Israel. But this argument sometimes requires a torturous chronology: “When, on January 16, 1956, Nasser vowed a renewed offensive to destroy Israel, the pressure on my father to step up operations increased. More fedayeen groups were organized, and their training expanded to other areas of the Gaza Strip. Often my father was gone for days at a time. In an attempt to end the terror, Israel sent its commandos one night to our heavily guarded home.”
The problem here is that this early, failed assassination attempt occurred in 1953, when Hafez was struggling to prevent destabilizing Palestinian infiltration from Gaza into Israel. Things changed dramatically in February 1955, when then military commander Ariel Sharon’s Gaza raid killed 37 Egyptian soldiers and wounded 31. This raid brought shocked international condemnation, the end of Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett’s ongoing negotiations with Nasser, mass demonstrations of Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, and Nasser’s decision to have Hafez organize and arm Palestinian fedayeen for cross-border forays. Israeli historians Avi Shlaim and Benny Morris see the raid as a turning point in Israeli-Arab relations. Darwish never mentions it.
Continuing with her discussion of the earlier undated raid on her family’s home (it actually occurred on 28-29 August 1953), she says, “My father was not at home that night, and the Israelis found only women and children — my mother, two maids, and five small children. The commandos left us unharmed. I personally did not even wake up or know of the incident until later in life, when I read a book written about my father. After I read it, I called my mother immediately, and she confirmed the story. The Israelis chose not [to] kill us even though the Egyptian-organized fedayeen did kill Israeli civilians, women and children.”
Young Nonie must have been a very sound sleeper, since one squad blew the gate off her house, injuring several civilians, and, by one account, proceeded to demolish the house. Grown-up Nonie seems not to know that the Israeli commandos were part of Ariel Sharon’s newly-organized Unit 101. While the one squad attacked her house, Sharon’s was cornered nearby in al-Bureij refugee camp. He decided they would bomb and shoot their way through the camp rather than retreat from it. General Vagn Bennike, the Danish UN Truce Chief, reported to the Security Council on the ensuing massacre: “Bombs were thrown through the windows of huts in which the refugees were sleeping and, as they fled, they were attacked by small arms and automatic weapons. The casualties were 20 killed, 27 seriously wounded, and 35 less seriously wounded.” Other sources estimate from 15 to 50 fatalities.
The Israeli army blamed the raid on rogue kibbutzniks, and Ariel Sharon tried to reassure his men, telling them that all the dead women were camp whores or murderous Palestinian infiltrators. But some of them remained shocked at what they had done. Participant Meir Barbut said they felt as if they were slaughtering the pathetic inhabitants of a Jewish transit camp: “The boys threw Molotov cocktails at [innocent] people, not at the saboteurs we had come to punish. It was shameful for the 101 and the IDF [Israel army].” Another asked, “Is this screaming, whimpering multitude … the enemy? … How did these fellahin sin against us?” In 2006, Palestinian journalist Laila El-Haddad interviewed a survivor for Al Jazeera English:
“Mohammad Nabahini, 55, was two at the time and lived in the camp. He survived the attack in the arms of his slain mother. ‘My father decided to stay behind when they attacked. He hid in a pile of firewood and pleaded with my mother to stay with him. She was too afraid, and fled with hundreds of others, only to return to take me and a few of her belongings with her,’ he said. ‘As she was escaping, her dress got caught in a fence around the camp, just over there,’ he gestured, near a field now covered with olive trees. ‘And then they threw a bomb at her, Sharon and his men. She tossed me on the ground behind her before she died.’”
Though Darwish never mentions it, the al-Bureij Massacre hasn’t exactly been a secret — both Zionist and anti-Zionist historians have described it clearly, with little disagreement save the number of fatalities, with the high-end estimate coming from an Israeli history. If it tends not to loom large in Palestinian historical memory, that’s because it was overshadowed just two months later by the Qibya Massacre, during which Sharon’s Unit 101 killed 67, women and children, demolishing buildings over their heads and shooting them down when they tried to flee — the tactic pioneered at al-Bureij. Given its propensity for civilian soft targets, this daredevil elite unit might be better described as a death squad.
We probably shouldn’t expect Nonie Darwish to alter her campus presentations anytime soon. The bookings by StandWithUs might dry up if she were to start supplementing her cautionary tales about sharia law, jihadi immigrants, and female genital mutilation with a serious discussion of Israeli massacres at Deir Yassin, Tantura, al-Bureij, Qibya, Kfar Qasim, Sabra and Shatila, and Beit Hanoun. In any case, Darwish prefers simple cultural generalities and intimate personal reflection to historical analysis. But since that’s the case, someone at her next lecture might ask if she remembers playing with any of the refugee children murdered at al-Bureij, and why the kindly Israeli commandos who spared her family decided to blow up Mohammad Nabahini’s mother.
Jim Holstun teaches world literature and Marxism at SUNY Buffalo and can be reached at jamesholstun A T hotmail D O T com.
February 19th, 2010 at 2:10 am
It looks like any Muslim/Arab wants to hit the “money jackpot” in the United States,he or she can do so by simply starts casting a bunch of lies about Islam,Muslims and Arabs. The number of Zionist sponsors and haters of Islam,Muslim and Arabs will initially spring-up like Mushrooms,but will eventially fades away,as those who were willing to sell themselves for money are fully consumed by their sponsors and no longer useful for the propaganda purposes of the sponsors.
Those kind of Muslims and Arabs deserve no anger from me but rather a profound pity and I am no Muslim but studied Islam,Arabic language,Arabic
literatures and Arabic history and cultures. Yes,Nonie Darwish deserves no anger from me,but profound PITY…
February 19th, 2010 at 7:24 am
Mooneye,You have really enlightened a lot of people like me who knew so little about this great person named Noni Darwish.It is strange that the people, who are the target of your hate turn out to be so excellent.
Like Mohammad who liked nothing but praise and disliked opposing opinion,you follow his footsteps and you do not have the moral courage to publish my comments. By the way Zakir Naik a great Islamic comedian.He is bankrolled by Arabs,how about you?
February 19th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Thanks for bringing this piece to our attention. I think Nonie’s father must be spinning in his grave.
February 19th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
It is no surprise that the maggots who thrive in this industry are liars.
Nonie Darwish – liar
Wafa Sultan – liar – she has lied about numerous things, including a claim that she watched a professor get gunned down at her university
Walid Shoebat – well documented liar – even Debbie Schlussel and her visage of beauty have taken shots at this fraud
Ayan Hirsi Ali – lied to get into the Netherlands, and lied about her supposed oppression at the hands of her husband and family – and now she’s breaking up the marriage of Niall Ferguson, so much for women’s rights.
Brigitte Gabriel aka Hanan Tudor – exposed by Debbie Schlussel yet again
This entire enterprise is soaked with roaches trying to eat at the dung heap. As the heap lessens, they increasingly butt heads, which is why we’ve seen some friction among the different members of this odious movement, with Schlussel in particular demonstrating very thin skin. She even began attacking the Botox Queen at one point.
February 19th, 2010 at 7:22 pm
At first i thought that picture was smiling, but the more you look at it, the more it looks like an expression frozen in cosmic horror. Perhaps this inability to smile like a human being is a physical result of her spiritual transgressions.
February 22nd, 2010 at 3:34 pm
“Ayan Hirsi Ali – lied to get into the Netherlands, and lied about her supposed oppression at the hands of her husband and family – and now she’s breaking up the marriage of Niall Ferguson, so much for women’s rights.”
LOL Hirsi the feminist! I did not know about this.
February 23rd, 2010 at 9:56 am
I agree with Garo. I pity her and all that stand with her. May God have mercy on their souls.
June 21st, 2010 at 11:51 am
so if this woman lies about everything, then is all that she claims (and others) about “Sharia law” all lies as well?
in attempts to cut through all the BS with regard to the extremists on BOTH sides of the never ending conflict in the Middle East, where can i find the TRUTH about what Sharia law actually entails?
of course, i understand how people make up their OWN truths, but i guess i’m hunting for perhaps the least biased information about Sharia law. it would be helpful to find a source which is NOT from either group of people closely related to the matter.
thank you.
bbc
June 21st, 2010 at 12:36 pm
bernard: in attempts to cut through all the BS with regard to the extremists on BOTH sides of the never ending conflict in the Middle East, where can i find the TRUTH about what Sharia law actually entails?
I would suggest the following two books my Muhammad Asad:
(1) This Law of ours and other Essays
(2) The Principles of State and Government in Islam
Alternatively, you could listen to the following lecture by Hamza Yusuf
http://www.ilookisee.co.uk/Lectures/CD%20Lectures/Hamza%20Yusuf%20-%20Vision%20Of%20Islam.htm
June 22nd, 2010 at 2:26 am
You only have to look and see for yourself that everywhere where there is
political trouble, Islam is involved. If Muslims want us to believe that they are a peaceful religion they must first of all abolish all laws that make women second rate citizens and slaves, because what Nonie says is TRUE!! Then Muslims should open their mouths and condemn the hatred and
violence for which Islam is responsible. And THEN! STOP THE ANTI-SEMITISM! Why is Israel singled out for everything that is evil when they want to defend THEIR territory, but when gross human suffering happens in other parts of the world nobody bats an eyelid about that! Israel bashers, get your facts straight! @ bbc, I hope you get to the bottom of Sharia law, i.e. the truth, because that is what the world needs to know: TRUTH!
June 24th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
No matter how you twist and bend the truth- it will pop out somewhere. It is not rocket science to know who is lying. No person is as blind as he who do not wish to see. You will have fundamentalists in every religion – but have a look at which teachings are the most consistant. The truth is simple – as soon as you have to overexplain something – you are forcing it to fit your lifestyle. Christ said that if you seek the truth that you will find it – perhaps people avoid the truth for the simple reason that they will have to make a fundamental change to their fundamental lifestyle which could have some fundamental consequences… – just a thought
June 25th, 2010 at 1:41 am
Sonia
Have you ever been across the sea to Ireland ? Basque country in Spain ? Columbia ? I could go on but its boring . Its just not true that Islam is behind all terrorist attacks . Ask the experts, ask the FBI or Europol. Just look at facts they are out there .Maybe just not on Fox news or sites that deliberatly spread misinformation and lies .
Sorry I dont buy the anti semitism equals anti Isreal . Isreal is a political entity thus it is acceptable to hold a different political view point . ( and boy do I hold a different political view point ) they even have political parties in Isreal that dont agree with each other, how ever anti semitism is the hate of a whole race and hate is wrong .
John you are so right but maybe not in the way you intended.
June 25th, 2010 at 1:55 am
Sonia: You only have to look and see for yourself that everywhere where there is political trouble, Islam is involved.
Really? So the recent showdown between red shirt protesters and government troops in Bangkok were due to Islam? Or how about the Sri Lankan government’s fight against the Tamil Tigers, were they due to Islam as well?
I could go on and on, but only an idiot would still hold onto what you said.
June 25th, 2010 at 3:11 am
@ Sonia. You’re a woman, right? YOU, BECAUSE OF YOUR KIND I’M DOOMED IN THIS WORLD, how dare you speak? EH? Sorry, just joking
In case you didn’t get it, here you go:
Genesis 3:6 KJV “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”
Intermezzo: compare to Quran teaching:
Quran 2:36-37 “But the Shaitan made them both fall from it, and caused them to depart from that (state) in which they were; and We said: Get forth, some of you being the enemies of others, and there is for you in the earth an abode and a provision for a time. Then Adam received (some) words from his Lord, so He turned to him mercifully; surely He is Oft-returning (to mercy), the Merciful.”
Anyway, let’s get back to business (emphasis added)
“You only have to look and see for yourself that EVERYWHERE where there is political trouble, ISLAM IS INVOLVED.”
WOW, that’s a bold claim. Let’s see the quality of Sonia who said this.
“If Muslims want us to believe that they are a peaceful religion they must first of all abolish all laws that make WOMEN SECOND RATE CITIZENS and slaves, because what Nonie says is TRUE!! Then Muslims should open their mouths and condemn the hatred and violence for which Islam is responsible.”
Excuse me? Do you wonder why the hell I put those bible verse above? And then compared it to the Quran? Right, to show you the truth. It is bible/torah that placed women in a such position. I am (MALE) doomed in this world because of EVE (FEMALE)!!!
Another proof that IT IS CHRISTIAN that put women as second rate citizen:
1 Timothy 2:11-12 NIV “11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” See? Do you know why is that? Because of the first bible verse that I quote above, as further said on 1 Timothy
1 Timothy 2:14-15 NIV “14 And Adam was not the one deceived; IT WAS WOMAN WHO WAS DECEIVED AND BECAME A SINNER 15 But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.”
Another one:
Deuteronomy 24:1 NIV “When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.”
Anyway, which law are you referring to? Care to show us? You see, the way I see it: The pro-Geller and Cowardie Spencie reader of this website tend to just throw baseless accusation which is pathetic at best. See? If you said that ISLAM makes WOMEN as SECOND RATE CITIZENS (without giving any proof), I wonder what would you say to the above bible verses.
“And THEN! STOP THE ANTI-SEMITISM! Why is Israel singled out for everything that is evil when they want to defend THEIR territory, but when gross human suffering happens in other parts of the world nobody bats an eyelid about that! Israel bashers, get your facts straight! @ bbc, I hope you get to the bottom of Sharia law, i.e. the truth, because that is what the world needs to know: TRUTH!”
Contrary to you, WHEN GROSS HUMAN SUFFERING IS HAPPENING TO THE PALESTIANS, YOU ALL KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!!! WHOSE territory is that? They claimed it as their land because their “scribe” told them to do so. THAT’S AGAIN HUMANITY and I dare say that THE SCRIBE IS NOT FAIR. The scribe instruct you to ROB and DRIVEN OUT the native inhabitants out of their homeland. Just as this verse said:
Deuteronomy 20:16 KJV “But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth”
Anyway, it is no wonder to me that you’re easily deceived by Nonie. As 1 Timothy 2:14 above pointed out, it is within your blood. You’re easily deceived by satan.
June 28th, 2010 at 9:56 am
So – she’s a liar, Mooneye is not. At least according to him.
Another website – she is a saint, he a liar.
Basically – who cares?
Those who get listened to get paid, those who are ignored go away.
Lesson here: give them no attention, they’ll go away.
July 1st, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Islam needs the time to grow up like christianity grew out of the dark ages.
Women were not treated very well either in those days in the christian world.
It took the west a long time to reach the society we have today which I
think despite it’s flaws has the best social structure in the world.
I fail to understand why some people coming from the muslim world into
the western world voice such hatred towards our western culture.
My suggestion is please go back where you came from and leave us alone.
If the muslim world is so wonderful and caring what the hell are you doing
in the west.
When we show intolerance towards the muslim women hiding behind their veils
you get upset. Do you show tolerance when our women come to your
country dressed the way they are used to ?
I hope for all our sakes that a renaissance will take place in your world.
It took us a couple of hundred years before we dragged ourselves out
of the darkness with our christian believes.
July 2nd, 2010 at 4:44 am
john T
I love the idea that christainity is grown up. News flash ! women are still not treated very well in many parts of the christain world either.
Find me an empty womens refuge ( safe place for victims of domestic abuse)
Please define ‘social structure’? please define ‘our western culture ‘
You assume you define for everyone what that is ? so tell us . What do you believe in rather than state what you think Islam stands for?
Then people can measure that against what they believe in.
July 11th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
I received an email of a short version of some of Nonie Darwish writings and quotes and I thought it sounded exaggerated, for the purpose of stirring emotional responses and hatred. When you google her name there are all sorts of opinions so one has to be careful not to presume that it is all correct. People do eventually find out the truth. What comes out of America is certainly extreme at times. Lets not be gullable.
There is a lot of quotes from Bible and Koran on this site. They both contain passages that are violent, to women, to homosexuals, to sinners. It led me to think of how Jesus came and put another law at work. His life showed us how he embraced the outcast, to include women in a society that was patriarchal that excluded them in many ways. Jesus presents New Covenant of peace, a Kingdom. I am a Christian, and I try to read the essence of the Bible truths but I cannot take the Bible as literal. It has violence in the Old Testament too. It contains the words of God but also words of men who were withing cultural situations that required a cultural answer at the time. ie St Paul. He himself says somewhere that the he thinks as he writes that he had the Lords mind… but it may have been his own thoughts. Lets get our good minds into some of these sorts of debates and get a hold of essence of Peace to help us live. We will never have any perfect formulas or rules set in place to live by. Never any perfect churches leaders or mosques. We are born each one of us to put into motion our decisions to see the cause and effect. We have many models and wise people who have lived to add good to this earth. The Beatitudes are a good start. Matthew 5. It wraps up all violence.
July 12th, 2010 at 4:21 am
Thanx to pisslamist leftists with your pisslamophobia!
YOU WILL TAKE OVER THOES LAND AND THEY ALL DESERVE WHAT THEY’VE GOT;IF THEY
BELIEVE YOU AND THOES PISSLAMISTS LEFTISTS ISTEAD 4 PPL LIKE HER!
SOME NEWS 4 YOUR JACKASSES;IRAN WILL BE FREE FROM YOUR SHIT SO ASIA WILL BE FREE AND I HOPE YOU GARBAGES GO BACK TO THE PLACE YOU MORONS COMES FROM
BEGIENING,back to your shitty planet!
JOIN MY WEBSITE;U PSYCHO TERRORIST!
July 12th, 2010 at 10:35 am
And the award for the most illiterate Islamophobe goes to…….MinaJoon!!!
A standing ovation for the idiot please!
July 13th, 2010 at 7:03 am
Thats great, Eye, but you forgot to explain to the interested listeners exactly why islam isnt the religion of choice – for murderers and other maladjusted types but please dont let me distract you from your ramblings.
July 16th, 2010 at 9:27 am
Sheila, I like the Beatitudes recommendation.
A Pharisee asked, Master which is the greatest commandment and Jesus said to him, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hangs all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:34-40
I may be wrong but, this does not sound like Our Lord was speaking about religions or nationalities. It sound like He was speaking about ALL of us here on this orb we call earth.
July 23rd, 2010 at 12:12 pm
I’m with BBC…what is the “truth”? I haven’t got a clue who’s right and who’s wrong. Perhaps they’re all right/wrong to a degree. But here’s my opinion:
I have no problem with muslims, christians, buddists, pagans, witches, aliens from outer space, etc. coming to North America. Afterall, North America was built by immigrants, with a some Native influence. However, we have our laws in this country…laws that should be enforced no matter what your religion may be. Honour Killings & domestic violence – a definite no-no and should not be tolerated. The Bible has some outdated “teachings” too. The Bible, the Quran, all the religious books were written by men, hundreds of years ago. Obviously no religious book or religion is perfect. It would be complete ignorance to believe that any one religion is completely correct. Western society is far from perfect but we’re trying. We TRY to ensure that human rights is at the top of our list of priorities. I’d like to think that the majority of us care about each other and live our lives with the goal of eventually, someday, having a near perfect society with no domestic abuse, little to no murders and certainly no “honour killings”. There’s no honour in killing, especially a family member (unless the person is terminally ill, in extreme pain and there’s no hope of recovery). I can’t imagine what would be going through a parent’s head as they were about to murder their own child…it’s barbaric! Even the barbarians probably wouldn’t have killed their own kin. And we do know that happens under Sharia law…we’ve seen irrefutable evidence of that done by muslim immigrants already in North America.
My grandfather was an asian immigrant in the early 1900′s. When he arrived here he understood that he was coming to North America, joining the North American culture and he decided to assimilate. Afterall, he was coming here to escape the problems of his own country. There was no sense in bringing those same problems here. He came to live in the land of the free. North American culture was obviously what he was after so why not immerse himself fully. In fact, when he recently died, we were cleaning out his house and found all kinds of “self-help” books on how to be a “North American Parent”, how to _______ the North American way. He even gave up his Buddhist religion to become Christian. I see that as going a bit far but that’s what many immigrants did back then. They knew North America was fundamentally a Christian society and they were leaving their war-torn/communist/etc. home countries for a better way of life, one that was inherently Christian. Now, in North America, because we are the land of the free, we are free to choose our own religions/cultures/beliefs, etc. but that doesn’t mean we should be able to choose the laws we want to follow. Unfortunately the Muslim religion seems to be too closely tied to Sharia Law. I think the USA and Canada need to stop being such pussies and stiffen up the immigration rules. Sure, come to America, practice whatever religion you want but you MUST obey our laws including no honour-killings, no domestic abuse, your family members must be afforded the same freedom to dress how they want without fear of violence, etc. If you can’t follow our laws, go back where you came from…if you want to live under Sharia Law, stay in your own country.
Just my opinion.
July 23rd, 2010 at 8:36 pm
Chantel
Sigh. “Honour killings” and domestic violence have no place in Islam/Shariah law either. Did you really believe that this is what the Shariah is about?
Your comments have more to do with what you incorrectly perceive as “Shariah law”, than about how Muslims understand or practice their religion.
August 9th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
What I fail to understand is why the folks behind Cordoba aren’t standing up and speaking out against all the anti-Muslim bigotry being propagated from the Right.
In college I remembered the MSA being FULL of informed, articulate and opinionated Muslims who’d speak out on things. Why don’t they go to Atlas Shrugs and argue against the anti-Muslim bigotry spewed by Geller’s groupies? Why don’t they write to the newspapers and tv news channels (even Fox News) condemning them for promoting bigotry or having the likes of Geller on their programs? There are how many Muslims in the US? If only 100 or so made a hobby of opposing anti-Muslim hate on the internet, it would trickle down (or up) to the media, and the national discourse.
How is it that someone who says THIS, gets to go on CNN or Fox and be treated like an Islamic expert:
“…it’s the Muslims who are dragging the rest of the world with them, in their genocidal dreams of annihilating goodness, creativity, production, inventiveness, benevolence, charity, medicine, technology, and all of the gifts of the Jews. Our goodness makes them ill.” – Pamela Geller, on her blog
???
August 9th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
During her recent interview on MSNBC Nonie Darwish stated…
“I am against this frenzy of mosque building…”
Later in the same interview…
[In a flusted voice] “The people who are on Loonwatch are those imams who are trying to fool the American people, who don’ want to stand up for our rights for religious freedoms in America.”
1. Nonie Darwish makes allegation Loonwatch is run by imams who do not stand up for religious freedom, but is against religious freedom herself when it comes to building mosques or cultural centers. Hypocrisy.
August 9th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
@JustAFan,
Thanks for the tip! Wow. We’ll have to do a rapid piece on that.
August 9th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
@JustAFan
How did loonwatch come up in the interview?
August 9th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Oh….you didn’t know??
It pays to be an ex-Muslims/anti-Islamic…..!! It pays BIG MONEY!!
Anyone can disown Islam and cash-in for their souls in the West…..
And there will be more standing in line when the current ones are dead and buried. NO!! That’s no “death threat”. We will ALL be dead and buried one day!!
August 10th, 2010 at 4:12 am
Having read nearly all of the above comments, I came to the conclusion that this website is to be congratulated for allowing free rein to various opinions. In this regard it reflects a basic right written into the constitution of most western democracies. Freedom of expression.
It is good to see the ‘haters’ from both sides pour out their souls. But preaching hate and violence is also an offence in most western societies, the aim being to allow any person to live their own lives, free to worship their God, whether materialistic or spiritual, without persecution from extremists. This is why such organisations of the left and right are banned.
I have lived a life of total freedom, dressed as I like, worship as I like, make friends with whom I like, travel wherever I want to, married the love of my life and my choice, raised my children with the same values. But I realise that my freedom rests on the lives of the poor souls who perished fighting for these values over the last 1000 years. Mostly extremists, with their own twisted interpretation of religious texts, resulting in the Spanish Inquisition, etc.
I cannot comprehend a doctrine which enslaves women, forces them to wear a religious outfit, condones ‘honour’ killings, does not allow religious freedom, etc., etc. If such practices do exist, in any so-called religious organisation, they have to be stamped out. A man has no more rights over a woman than a woman has over a man. They are both entirely equal in God’s eyes and were created that way.
I am of course a Christian, which basically means a belief in the inspired spiritual writings of the 3000 year Old Testament, but also freedom from the excesses of the Jewish practices, such as circumcision, etc., etc.
My only purpose in writing is to try to extend the concept of peace and freedom. Our beloved Irish priest, sadly missed, often remonstrated the congregation with just one ideal – if you cannot shake your neighbours hand, be civil to all, then don’t even bother to come to Church, because you haven’t even grasped very basis of Christian ideals. I am sure the same can be said of most religions, it is the people in power who subvert these ideals.
Who is your neighbour? Everyone on the planet, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, communist, fascist, etc.
August 10th, 2010 at 8:54 am
@ Garibaldi
Glad to be of assistance.
@ Les
Zead Ramadan brought up Loonwatch.com during the MSNBC interview and Loonwatch being as speedy as their usual selves already have a story at the address below…
http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/08/nonie-darwish-on-msnbc-loonwatch-are-imams/
August 10th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
TNN, Jun 21, 2010
On Sunday, the family members of a girl allegedly killed her and her teenaged lover and hanged them as exhibits in their house for the village to see their “fate.”
According to police, Monika (18) and her lover Rinku (19), both from Jat families, were brutally killed for honour at Nimriwali village, near Bhiwani. The father of the girl, her brother, uncle and cousins are suspected to be behind the crime and are absconding.
===============================================
TNN, Jul 1, 2010,
The death of the Delhi-based journalist Nirupama Pathak in her Koderma home for her relationship with a boy from a different caste and the arrest of her mother shook the country that has professed to evolve a casteless society
HONOR KILLING ARE A CULTURAL THING NOT RELIGION LOOK ABOVE/\ …..CRIMES ARE THE LOWEST IF YOU LOOK AT THE STATS FROM PEOPLE THAT IMMIGRATE FROM MUSLIM COUNTRYS LIKE ASIA CHINA ME AND WHEN MUSLIMS TRY TO ASSUMILATE AND COLLAGE AND SCHOOL DEGREE ARE HIGHER FROM KIDS FROM THESE PEOPLE AND THERE IS A DIFFRENCE BETWEEN ASSIMILATE AND FOLLOWING RULES AND SELLING OUT ( LIKE YOUR GRANDFATHER WHO CHANGED HIS RELIGION THAT IS NOT ASSIMILATING ) WHEN THEY DO TRY TO ASSIMILATE AND WORK WITH IN THE SYSTEM THEY ARE TOLD THEY ARE PUSHING STEALTH JIHAD AND PUSHING ISLAMIC LAW SO ITS A A NO WIN WHAT EVER THEY DO…
August 10th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
So, there is NO correllation between Islam and the level of freedom of the native cizitens in any country they now dominate?
Look at what happens in each country that muslims ‘invade’ and begin out-reproducing the natives. The higher the percentage of muslims, the less freedoms that countries native citizens enjoy. The more muslims there are, the more dangerous that area becomes for infidels.
Read your history, both long-term and recent, with your focus on muslims and Islam.
Methinks thou protesteth too much.
August 21st, 2010 at 11:13 pm
Watch the crows! That is how u live.
August 28th, 2010 at 5:52 am
In response to noname I have probably included more text than necessary when quoting from the Bible, I chosen to do this so you can see I am not trying to take anything out of context.
The only reason that Adam and Eve were allowed to eat fruit from the forbidden tree was to provide all of us with an example from the very beginning of time that we are all created with free will, our choices every day are ours. Both Adam and Eve chose to eat, I suppose, because we are people with imperfections who doubt, fear, want more. Wouldnt the world today be so very different if Eve had gone running straight to God saying I have been told something else about the tree of knowledge. Continue on in the Bible from Adam and Eve and you have Jesus son of God who died the most horrific death simply to redeem us to make us righteous in the eye’s of our God, if we were all to look at our actions I dont know how many of us deserve heaven without that free gift from Jesus.
With regards to the whole man/female power struggle thing you seem to have happening, Eve was created as a partner not a slave but a partner, a lifelong helper. We as women are to submit to our husbands who in turn is to treat us as Jesus treated the church, Jesus died for her. When a couple marry they are to cleave together to become one, not one in front one behind but one flesh. Ephesians 6:5-9 is another nice quick verse that instructs us to do everything we do as though we were doing it for God (paraphrasing here)this covers everything we do and clearly states that God sees all without favoritism.
Ephesians 6:5-9
5Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, 8because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.
9And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.
Genesis 1: 27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
Genesis 2: 18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam [h] no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs [i] and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib [j] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman, [k] ‘
for she was taken out of man.”
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
Ephesians 5: 22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30for we are members of his body. 31″For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[c] 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Referenced from biblegateway.com New International Version (NIV)
My parting comment is our greatest gift is love, not our inane ability to blow the shit out of each other.