Ground Zero 'mosque; protest gets ugly

Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com spotlights the core issue with the hysteria surrounding the protest of a Muslim community center near Ground Zero: Islamophobia. Greenwald correctly points out the significant ramifications of this issue and how it has both domestic and international consequences for the United States. Greenwald also aptly makes the important point that if these loons succeed in kicking out the Muslims from the land they own and have a Constitutional right to build on then it will only embolden the Islamophobes to continue protesting and demonstrating (and possibly worse, physically attacking) against mosque construction plans around the country.

Make sure to watch the video of the man at the protest who was incorrectly viewed by the protestors of the mosque as a Muslim. Imagine if he actually were a Muslim – what might have happened to him? It’s a scary thought.

The “mosque” debate is not a “distraction”

By Glenn Greenwald

Opponents of the Park51 Islamic community center held a rally yesterday in Lower Manhattan, and a 4-minute video, posted below, reveals the true sentiments behind this campaign.  It has little to do with The Hallowed Ground of the World Trade Center — that’s just the pretext — and everything to do with animosity toward Muslims.  I dislike the tactic of singling out one or two objectionable people or signs at a march or rally in order to disparage the event itself.  That’s not what this video is.  Rather, it shows the collective sentiment of those gathered, as well as what’s driving the broader national backlash against mosques and Muslims far beyond Ground Zero.

The episode in the video begins when, as John Cole put it, “some black guy made the mistake of looking Muslimish and was harassed and nearly assaulted by the collection of lily white mouth-breathers at the event . . . At about 25 seconds in, he quite astutely points out to the crowd that ‘All y’all dumb motherfuckers don’t even know my opinion on shit’.”  As this African-American citizen (whom the videographer claims is a union carpenter who works at Ground Zero) is instructed to leave by what appears to be some sort of security or law enforcement official, the crowd proceeds to yell:  ”he musta voted for Obama,” “Mohammed’s a pig,” and other assorted charming anti-mosque slogans.  I really encourage everyone to watch this to see the toxicity this campaign has unleashed:

The New York Times article on this rally describes similar incidents, including how a student who carried a sign that simply read ”Religious tolerance is what makes America great” was threatened and told that “that if the police were not present, [he] would be in danger.”  Does anyone believe that their real agenda is simply to have Park51 move a few blocks away to less Sacred ground, or that they’re amenable to some sort of Howard-Dean-envisioned compromise that accommodates everyone?

All of this underscores a point I’ve wanted to make for awhile.  There’s been a tendency, which I find increasingly irritating, to dismiss this whole Park51 debate as some sort of petty, inconsequential August “distraction” from what Really Matters.  Here’s Chuck Todd mocking the debate as a ”shiny metal object alert” and lamenting “the waste of time” he believes it to be, whileKatrina vanden Heuvel, in The Washington Post last week, condemned ”pundits and politicians [who] are working themselves into hysteria over a mosque near Ground Zero” on the ground that it won’t determine the outcome of the midterm elections.  This impulse is understandable.  If you chose to narrowly define the topic of the controversy as nothing more than the Manhattan address of Park 51, then obviously it pales in importance to the unemployment crisis, our ongoing wars, and countless other political issues.

But that’s an artificially narrow and misguided way of understanding what this dispute is about.  The intense animosity toward Muslims driving this campaign extends far beyond Ground Zero, and manifests in all sorts of significant and dangerous ways.  In June, The New York Times reported on a vicious opposition campaign against a proposed mosque in Staten Island.  Earlier this month, Associated Press documented that “Muslims trying to build houses of worship in the nation’s heartland, far from the heated fight in New York over plans for a mosque near ground zero, are running into opponents even more hostile and aggressive.”  And today, The Washington Post examines anti-mosque campaigns from communities around the nation and concludes that “the intense feelings driving that debate have surfaced in communities from California to Florida in recent months, raising questions about whether public attitudes toward Muslims have shifted.”

To belittle this issue as though it’s the equivalent of the media’s August fixation on shark attacks or Chandra Levy — or, worse, to want to ignore it because it’s harmful to the Democrats’ chances in November — is profoundly irresponsible.  The Park51 conflict is driven by, and reflective of, a pervasive animosity toward a religious minority — one that has serious implications for how we conduct ourselves both domestically and internationally.  Yesterday,ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour decided to let Americans hear about this dispute from actual Muslims behind the project (compare that, as Jay Rosen suggested, to David Gregory’s trite and typically homogeneous guest list of Rick Lazio and Jeffrey Goldberg and you see why there’s so much upset caused by Amanpour).  One of those project organizers, Daisy Kahn, said this during her ABC interview:

This is like a metastasized anti-Semitism.  That’s what we feel right now. It’s not even Islamophobia; it’s beyond Islamophobia. It’s hate of Muslims, and we are deeply concerned.

Can anyone watch the video of that disgusting hate rally and dispute that?  That’s exactly why I’ve found this conflict so significant.  If Park51 ends up moving or if opponents otherwise succeed in defeating it, it will seriouslybolster and validate the ugly premises at the heart of this campaign:  that Muslims generally are responsible for 9/11, Terrorism justifies and even compels our restricting the equals rights and access of Americans Muslims, and more broadly, the animosity and suspicions towards Muslims generally are justified, or at least deserving of respect.  As Aziz Poonawalla put it:  “if the project does fail, then I think that the message that will be sent is that bigotry and fear of Muslims is not just permitted, it is effective.”

That’s exactly the message that will be sent, and that’s what makes this conflict so significant.  Obviously, not all opponents of Park51 are as overtly hateful as those in that video — and not all opponents are themselves bigots — but the position they’ve adopted is inherently bigoted, as it seeks to impose guilt and blame on a large demographic group for the aberrational acts of a small number of individual members.   And one thing is certain:  if this campaign succeeds, it will proliferate and the sentiments driving it will become even more potent.  Hatemongers always become emboldened when they triumph.

The animosity and hatred so visible here extends far beyond the location of mosques or even how we treat American Muslims.  So many of our national abuses, crimes and other excesses of the last decade — torture, invasions, bombings, illegal surveillance, assassinations, renditions, disappearances, etc. etc. — are grounded in endless demonization of Muslims.  A citizenry will submit to such policies only if they are vested with sufficient fear of an Enemy.  There are, as always, a wide array of enemies capable of producing substantial fear (the Immigrants, the Gays, and, as that video reveals, the always-reliable racial minorities), but the leading Enemy over the last decade, in American political discourse, has been, and still is, the Muslim.

That’s why the population is willing to justify virtually anything that’s done to “them” without much resistance at all, and it’s why very few people demand evidence from the Government before believing accusations that someone is a Terrorist:  after all, if they’re Muslim, that’s reason enough to believe it.  Hence, the repeated, mindless mantra that those in Guantanamo — or those on the Government’s “hit list” — are Terrorists even in the absence of evidence and charges, and even in the presence of ample grounds for doubting the truth of those accusations.

And there’s no end in sight:  the current hysteria over Iran at its core relies — just as the identical campaign against Iraq did — on the demonization of a whole new host of Muslim villains.  A population that is constantly bombarded with tales of Muslim Evil (they want to kill your children and explode a nuclear suitcase in your neighborhood) will be filled with fear and hatred — sentiments always exacerbated during times of economic strife and uncertainty — and very well-primed to lash out.  That’s the decade-long brew that has led to this purely irrational, hate-driven demand that they not be allowed to desecrate and infect the Sacred, Hallowed Space of Ground Zero (the religious terminology used to talk about 9/11 is both creepy and no accident).  This “debate” over Park51 is many things.  An inconsequential “distraction” from what Really Matters is not one of them.

UPDATE:  Ron Paul issued a statement today excoriating conservative opponents of Park51 for violating their alleged belief in religious freedom and property rights, and added:

In my opinion it has come from the neo-conservatives who demand continual war in the Middle East and Central Asia and are compelled to constantly justify it.

They never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill conceived preventative wars. . . Defending the controversial use of property should be no more difficult than defending the 1st Amendment principle of defending controversial speech. But many conservatives and liberals do not want to diminish the hatred for Islam — the driving emotion that keeps us in the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. . . .

The outcry over the building of the mosque, near ground zero, implies that Islam alone was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. According to those who are condemning the building of the mosque, the nineteen suicide terrorists on 9/11 spoke for all Muslims. . . . . This is all about hate and Islamaphobia.

It is indeed “about hate and Islamaphobia,” and that is the driving, enabling force behind so many of America’s most controversial and destructive policies.

UPDATE II:  Perhaps the most depressing aspect of this entire episode has been the dearth of national politicians willing to stand up to this campaign of bigotry.  Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley became one of the few to issue an unapologetic, principled, unparsed, caveat-free defense of Park51 today, joining Ron Paul, Joe Sestak, Grover Norquist, Russ Feingold, Jerry Nadler,Ted Olson and only a handful of others.  It’s particularly commendable of Feingold and Sestak to do so given the very tight Senate races they are fighting, and there’s added weight when people like Paul, Olson, and Norquist stand up to their own party to do so.

I’ll be on MSNBC, at roughly 4:00 p.m., this afternoon, discussing these issues, along with National Review‘s Cliff May.

UPDATE III:  The group which sponsored this rally has a website — the repellently named StopThe911Mosque.com — which is registered to The Center for Security Policy, the group of Frank Gaffney, one of the most deranged and dishonest right-wing extremists in the country.  So it’s hardly surprising that such a rotted root gave rise to this toxic fruit (I just unintentionally made a nice rhyme).

Speaking of deranged right-wing extremists, I was on MSNBC today debating Park51 with Cliff May of National Review; it largely degenerated into a cable-news screamfest, but for those interested, you can watch it here:

Greenwald on Dylan Ratigan

Cameron Gilroy looks like he is trying out for the Two Face role in the next Batman movie.

A word of caution: It’s from The Scottish Sun, which I’m unfamiliar with and which doesn’t seem to be the world’s most respectable paper.  (What in the world is a “yob”?)  With that disclaimer in mind, here is the article:

Racist Caged for Muslim camp attack

By Linda Engels

A VICIOUS racist thug who screamed vile abuse at Muslim campers as they prayed at a Scots beauty spot was yesterday caged for 14 months.

Twisted Cameron Gilroy, 20, and his nine pals shouted ‘P***’, ‘n******’ and ‘go back to the Caribbean’ at the families who had travelled from Manchester to stay at Loch Lomond.

The dad-of-one then lobbed a lit rag through the smashed window of one of the traumatised tourists’ cars – completely destroying the £5,000 motor.

Yesterday Sheriff Andrew Cubie branded the attack last June at Sallochy Bay, near Rowardennan, Stirlingshire, “absolutely appalling”.

Gilroy and his pals had gone “wild camping” at the beauty spot – and ended up pitched next to Ali Muhiyye, Mahmound Muhiyye, Abdul Sharief, Bilal Sharief, Amar Sharief, Yasser Sharief, and Mussab Sharief.

But after a night of heavy drinking they started rowing with the Muslims after borrowing a torch.

As the group were finishing their pre-meal prayers before settling down to enjoy a barbecue Gilroy launched a tirade of sick slurs.

Prosecutor Sue Ruta told the court: “On one occasion the accused approached the tent of the complainers shouting ‘f****** b******* and n******. Come on, we fight you faster’.” The families ignored them and went to sleep – planning to move to another site the next day.

But the court heard that during the night they were awoken when the “tent started shaking” – and saw the ten yobs waiting outside.

Miss Ruta said: “The accused was heard saying ‘move back to your own country’.” The windows of a car were then smashed and Gilroy set a piece of petrol-soaked rag alight and threw it into the car.

Two of the tourists managed to put out the flames, but later they heard a “booming sound” as the car was set alight again – and saw Gilroy and his pals running off.

Yesterday at Stirling Sheriff Court jobless Gilroy, of Drumchapel, Glasgow, admitted wilful fire raising and shouting racist abuse. Jailing him, Sheriff Cubie said: “The courts in Stirling are sick of people coming into the area from the big city and taking part in fights while camping.

“In your case this was compounded by obnoxious anti-social behaviour towards visitors from Manchester and which culminated in you destroying a vehicle by fire.”

In February The Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority cited the attack when revealing plans to ban “wild camping”.

An Italian mayor banned niqab because it frightened some elementary school children. Will they ban this guy too?

My comments appear in brackets:

Woman fined for face-covering veil

By the CNN Wire Staff
May 4, 2010 — Updated 1456 GMT (2256 HKT)

Rome, Italy (CNN) — A woman in Italy has been fined €500 ($653) for wearing a veil that covered a large part of her face, in violation of a local ordinance, an official in Novara, Italy, said Tuesday…

The city has an ordinance preventing people from wearing clothes that cover the face and full body. The fine marked the first time the ordinance was enforced, Frazinelli said…

Under a 1975 national anti-terrorism law [wtf!?], Italy prohibits the covering of one’s face in public places.

In January of this year, Novara Mayor Massimo Giordano and the city council passed an ordinance prohibiting the wearing of clothes that fully hide the face of either men or women. The ordinance does not specifically name traditional Muslim garments such as the niqab or the burqa — which completely covers the face and body — nor does it mention Islam.

The ordinance applies only to the city of Novara, which has a population of about 100,000, out of which 8 percent are immigrants. [This is the crux of the issue: them damn immigrants!  Xenophobic inspired legislation, just like in Arizona.] Franzinelli said he estimates that about 4,000 to 5,000 Muslims live in Novara, and that most female Muslims either wear a veil, which covers the hair, or no head covering.

It is rare, he said, to see a woman wearing a niqab or burqa [yet we were still forced to pass this xenophobic legislation].

The mayor was prompted to push the ordinance after he saw children become frightened when a woman wearing a burqa went to their elementary school, Franzinelli said. [This is a great lesson to teach children.]

Giordano said of the ordinance, “It is the only way to favor integration.” [You mean assimilation.]

Belgium’s chamber of deputies last week passed a measure banning face coverings for women, which must still be approved by the senate and king before becoming law.

France is also mulling legislation that would ban face and head coverings for women.

Only dhimmis eat shawarmas!

Fellow comrades, this week we sent a powerful message to the stealth jihadists by banning minarets in Switzerland.  This was truly a watershed issue, one which I believe saved the country from the imminent stealth jihadist takeover and their terrorist plot to store nuclear warheads in their minarets.

But we must not stop here.  Rather, it is time to ride this wave of awareness to pass further legislation to curb radical Islam–and by this, I mean Islam in general.

It has come to my attention that Muslims use cemeteries to bury suicide bombers–often plotting future attacks from such locations and other ground based areas.  Furthermore, several Muslim cemeteries were funded by groups connected to someone whose brother knew someone whose neighbor was an unindicted co-conspirator in the WTC bombing, who also attended the same mosque that the mother of a member of CAIR attended–and as we all know, CAIR is a part of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda, a Wahhabist-Hezbollah and Al-Baik run organization, headed by Tariq Ramadan, Usama bin Ladin, and Haifa Wehbe.

The Jewish news source JTA.org reports:

Swiss leader calls for Jewish cemetery ban

December 3, 2009

BERLIN (JTA) — A mainstream Swiss political leader is calling for a ban on separate Muslim and Jewish cemeteries.

Christophe Darbellay, president of the Christian Democratic People’s Party of Switzerland, made the statement in a television interview Tuesday, two days after Swiss voters passed an initiative to ban minarets.

The anti-minaret initiative came from the opposition ultra-conservative Swiss People’s Party and other right-wing political organizations. Critics say Darbellay is starting a “crusade” to attract voters by proposing similarly xenophobic measures.

Mainstream politicians and religious leaders across Europe have reacted with dismay to the anti-minaret vote.

According to the Swiss online daily Tagesanzeiger, Darbellay also wants to ban the wearing of burkas, head-to-toe veils worn by some fundamentalist Muslim women.

Darbellay reportedly said that existing cemeteries would not be affected by a ban, but that there should be no separate cemeteries in the future.

The Swiss People’s Party called for crackdowns on expressions of Muslim fundamentalism in 2006. Observers said the demand for separate cemeteries is an escalation.

Yesterday, the minarets.  Today, the cemeteries.  Tomorrow, shawarmas.  My research indicates that shawarmas are the number one food source of terrorists, and cutting off this supply will cause them to suffer from severe hypoglycemia, which shall considerably weaken their capacity to commit terrorism.

Jewish bagels are very close to the burqa wrapped jihad-shawarmas, so those ought to be banned too.  We must not slacken in our resolve.

Cordially,
Obert S. Pencer.

Disclaimer: The letter by “Obert S. Pencer” is fictional but the news story about cemeteries is real.

Peter Gadiel

On September 11th of 2001, nineteen Al-Qaeda affiliated hijackers coordinated a series of horrific suicide attacks, killing almost three thousand innocent men, women, and children.  What motivated these young men to throw away their lives–and take away the lives of others–was a deep-seated and overwhelming hatred towards America.

The 9/11 attacks brought out the best–and at times the worst–in Americans.  Whilst certainly the desire to help out victims and their families reflected the best, there were other parts of society who co-opted the situation for their own nefarious hate-mongering purposes.  For Islamophobes, it became the casus belli against Islam and Muslims in general.  And so, in a horrible irony, the hatred of Al-Qaeda–of Muslim extremists–was internalized by some.  It is a truism–as trite as it sounds–that hate begets hate.

The rhetoric of the Islamophobes mirrors that of the Islamic extremists.  One merely needs to take out the word “Muslim” and substitute it for “Christian” and “Allah” with “Jesus.”  If one listens to the justifications Al-Qaeda gave for 9/11, they are remarkably similar to the justifications given by the Islamophobes to justify the excesses and casualties of aggressive wars.

It is unfortunate that many good meaning Americans may have been influenced by these Islamophobes.  Most impressionable and vulnerable to the hate-mongering are those directly affected by the Islamic extremists.  Nobody could be affected more by Al-Qaeda than the families of the 9/11 victims.  People often get emotional, and it is easy to substitute rage for rationality.  There is a desire to lash out at the other.  Simplistic answers seem comforting.

Peter Gadiel, a resident of Kent, Connecticut, suffered the loss of his son, who died in the horrific 9/11 attacks.  We here at LoonWatch extend our heartfelt condolences to Mr. Gadiel.  Furthermore, we understand that he is going through a difficult time, coping with the loss of a child, something that no parent should ever go through.  However, we urge Mr. Gadiel not to react to the hatred that killed his son with bigotry.

FoxNews reports:

KENT, Conn. — Peter Gadiel wants everyone to remember his son, James, who was killed during the September 11 terrorist attacks.

And he also wants people to remember how he died: “Murdered by Muslim terrorists.”

For Gadiel, any tribute to his son would be woefully incomplete without those words.

“I think it’s important, because I think there’s a nationwide effort to suppress the identity of the people who were involved in the attacks,” Gadiel told Fox News.

Eight years ago, 23-year-old James Gadiel worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center. He died when a hijacked plane crashed into the North Tower.

For years, Gadiel’s hometown of Kent, Conn., has wanted to honor the young man with a memorial plaque next to its town hall. But the tribute has hit a snag because James’ father wants to include the phrase, “Murdered by Muslim terrorists,” under his son’s name.

For Peter Gadiel, it is a central fact of the Sept. 11 attacks that is often left out.

“It isn’t just overlooked, it’s suppressed,” Gadiel said. “It’s simply wrong to imply that people just died. The buildings didn’t just collapse, they didn’t just fall down — they were attacked by people with a specific identity, a specific purpose.”

Town officials call the phrase too controversial for a small town memorial, and they recently voted against erecting the plaque if Gadiel insists on the language.

“We perceive ourselves as a very warm, loving town,” said Ruth Epstein, a Kent selectman and one of two town leaders to vote the plaque down. “To disparage any one ethnic group is just against everything that we stand for here.”

Epstein noted that other Sept. 11 memorials, like the one at the Pentagon, don’t mention Muslim terrorists, and she said she does not want to alienate any members of her small and close-knit community.

“We have at least one Muslim family living here with children and it — it would be just awful to have them see something like that,” Epstein told Fox News.

But for Gadiel, it’s an important message that he insists be present on any tribute to his son.

“Muslims have to acknowledge that it was their co-religionists who committed this act in their name,” he said. “I am offended that unlike so many others, they refuse to acknowledge that it was their people who did this.”

This would be a dangerous precedent.  Should the memorial plaques in honor of the Native Americans read “Murdered by White Christian Genocidal Butchers?” According to IraqBodyCount.org, over a 100,000 Iraqi civilians–including men, women, and children–have died due to the war.  Should the graves of the dead be emblazoned with “Murdered by Christian Crusaders?”  Hundreds of civilians died in Gaza due to Israel’s obscene offensive; should memorials be raised to honor them with the words “Murdered by Jewish Terrorists?”

The Islamophobes might ask “weren’t the 9/11 hijackers Muslims and terrorists, so what is wrong with having the plaque say exactly that?”  Well, on this line of reasoning, what’s wrong with erecting memorial plaques for white suburban kids “Murdered by Urban Blacks?”  Or if a Jew killed anyone, then plaques boldly saying that “Jews Murdered This Man.”  Maybe we should start identifying every race or religion in this manner?

The truth is that if all people did this, then there would be no religion–and no ethnic group–that would be left without “blood on their hands.” Luckily, most human beings agree with the principle enunciated in the ancient scriptures that, ‘there is no collective guilt.’ In the Quran it states, “Every soul earns only to its own account; no laden soul bears the sins of another” (6:164) and in the Bible: “Each is to die for his own sin.” (Deut. 24:16).

The phraseology chosen by Mr. Gadiel seems to associate the sin of the 9/11 attacks to all of the Muslims.  Any sensible person can see that, which is why the officials refused to include such an offensive and inflammatory inscription.  Ruth Epstein, one of Kent’s town leaders, said quite correctly: “To disparage any one ethnic group is just against everything we stand for here.”  In fact, it is exactly what the Al-Qaeda hijackers stood–and died–for.

Mr. Gadiel said: “Muslims have to acknowledge that it was their co-religionists who committed this act in their name. I am offended that unlike so many others, they refuse to acknowledge that it was their people who did this.”

The way he phrased the statement tells us a lot about Mr. Gadiel’s frame of mind.  It’s as if he sees Muslims as one monolithic group, as if Muslims are the Borg, with one master leader who makes all the decisions.  So somehow, in his mind, he sees all Muslims as collectively denying that they had anything to do with the attacks.  Even that idea–that somehow ‘they’ are involved because their co-religionists were involved–is certainly questionable.

And he’s just quite frankly wrong about this; all of the major Muslim organizations condemned Al-Qaeda (an Islamic extremist group) for what they did on 9/11.  Is that not acknowledging who did it? It is often erroneously claimed by some that Muslims have remained silent about 9/11 or terrorism in general.  Yet, nothing could be further from the truth.  The major Muslim organizations have issued statement after statement about their abhorrence of terrorism and condemnation of 9/11 in specific.  It is to the point of exhaustion.  Here is one non-exhaustive list of condemnations of 9/11 and terrorism, from the major Islamic organizations.

Many Muslims would argue that while they have bent over backwards to condemn the 9/11 attacks ad nauseum, few non-Muslim Americans have recognized the deaths of millions of Muslim civilians who have died as the result of interventionist policies, those that are in fact fueled by the same type of hatred that brought down the World Trade Center.  Would Mr. Gadiel like to admit that “his people” did that, or would he simply “refuse to acknowledge” it?  In Kent, there is a Mr. Gadiel mourning the loss of his son, who died at the hands of the Islamic extremist group Al-Qaeda.  In Kirkuk, there is a Mr. Gamal mourning the loss of his daughter, who died at the hands of the Christian extremist group Blackwater.

Of course, the dead of America have one advantage over the dead of Iraq.  The former have names and faces, whereas the latter are left by the mainstream media as nameless and faceless.  The former are recognized in memorial services and plaques (as they should be), whereas the latter are forgotten in the rubble that they died under.  One sees this double standard in the media quite clearly: the lives of those who died in 9/11 are covered in detail in order to personalize them (as should be done), whereas the death of Iraqis–of “Mooslims”–is just a meaningless statistic.

As for the phrase “their people” that Mr. Gadiel employed, that is questionable as well, since many Muslims in this country–nay, most–see themselves as Americans, so they are “our people.”  Our people and part of the pluralistic country we live in.  LoonWatch.com condemns all forms of bigotry and hatred.  We do not agree with the binary world view, the ‘us vs them’ mentality that fuels this holy war between Judeo-Christianity and Islam.  Yes Mr. Gadiel, a group of extremists killed your son, but do not let them kill American values: our pluralistic tradition that embraces people of all races and religions.

Mr. Gadiel, your son died.  Do not co-opt his death to spread hatred.  Use his death to spread love, compassion, and understanding–values that you no doubt preached to your son when he was alive.  Al-Qaeda wants you to hate Muslims in general.  What they don’t want is for you to embrace Muslims as brothers in humanity.

From Left to Right: Andrew Bostom, Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller

Fascism’s new face in Europe, parliamentarian in the Netherlands Geert Wilders, proposes taxing Muslim women who wear hijab (head covering) 1000 Euros. He is a close friend of Robert Spencer who has proclaimed that “everyone should support Geert Wilders.” Wilders has also called for the banning of the Quran which he equates to Hitler’s Mein Kampf , has stated that Muslims are colonizing the Netherlands and has advocated the denial of religious freedom to Muslims.

Wilders Wants Headscarf Tax

Geert Wilders has done it again. The leader of the far-right Freedom Party managed to make the Dutch headlines during the annual general political debate.

Wilders’s newest proposal is to tax the Muslim headscarf. Any Muslim woman who wants to wear a headscarf – which he described as a ‘head-rag’ – would have to apply for a licence, and pay one thousand euros for the privilege. Wilders says the money raised would go toward women’s emancipation programmes.

Alexander Pechtold from the liberal D66 Party gives his reaction:

The rest of the Dutch parliament reacted to the proposal with disbelief. One after another, they asked Mr Wilders if this was a serious proposal. For instance, would he include other types of head covering in the tax? And how about orthodox Christian women who wear a headscarf quite similar to the Muslim version?

In reaction, Mr Wilders said he would actually prefer to ban the headscarf altogether, but that appeared to be legally impossible. He would not tax the Christian form of the headscarf, but he did not say how policy would make that distinction.

Mr Wilders has acquired a reputation for making shocking statements during general debates. Two years ago, he called for the banning the Muslim holy book, the Quran. Last year, he warned that Muslims were colonising the Netherlands. Last spring, he and his entire fraction walked out at the beginning of a debate.

The government still has to defend its new budget as part of the general debates. But in an unusual move, Mr Wilders has already announced that he plans to submit another motion of no-confidence in the entire cabinet. That will be the Freedom Party’s eighth motion of no-confidence.

Three year old girl, traumatized from watching her grandfather's brutal murder

We usually like to keep our tone of voice on this site cheeky and lighthearted, mostly because the zany antics of the Islamophobic loonies are, quite frankly, amusing. But there is nothing funny about the very real consequences that occur due to the environment of xenophobia that they seek to engender.

On September 8th, it was reported that a “Devout Muslim dies after savage beating by ‘race-hate’ gang.” A sixty-seven year old Muslim man was mercilessly beaten to death by a motley group of racists. Worse yet, the gang did it in front of the man’s three year old granddaughter, who remains traumatized from the incident:

Ekram Haque, 67, lost his fight for life a week after he was battered to the ground in front of his three-year-old granddaughter, Marian….Mr Haque – described by friends as a ‘gentle giant’ – had suffered horrific head injuries.

His granddaughter has been left ‘very shaken and disturbed’, said her father, Mr Haque’s son Arfan. Graphic images of the attack were caught on CCTV.

This is not an isolated incident, but rather one in a “series of other attacks” aimed at Moozlim-looking elderly people, or “Pakis” as they are “lovingly” referred to by bigots in the UK:

Police are linking the assault on the retired care worker to a series of other attacks on elderly Asian people near the mosque.

Three of the earlier victims were also pensioners. As local community tensions grew, police stepped up patrols near the Idara E Jaaferiya mosque where Mr Haque was attacked last Monday.

Police say they are treating the attack on Mr Haque as racially motivated.

What is perhaps most disturbing is the age of the assailants, ranging from twelve to fifteen:

* Two youths aged 14 and 15 have appeared before Wimbledon Youth Court accused of committing grievous bodily harm with intent on Mr Haque.
* They and another boy, aged 12, are also accused of conspiracy to commit GBH and two counts of assault on victims in their 40s and 70s. Another 14-year-old has been charged over the attacks, but has yet to appear in court.

It is only natural to assume that such hatred can only be learnt from elders. All of this takes place not in a vacuum but rather in an atmosphere of hatred and fear-mongering.

On a positive note, Mr. Arfan–son of the deceased–advised Muslims of the area to react in a calm manner, asking them only to increase their prayers to God:

Arfan, 35, a consumer law adviser, described the incident as ‘mindless violence’ but urged people in the Muslim community to remain calm.

He said: ‘I would urge people in our community to remember that Islam is a peaceful religion and does not condone revenge attacks. If you want to do anything, just pray.

Both Islamophobes and Islamic extremists–two peas in the same pod–like to tally up all the insults and injuries upon their own community in order to ‘compete’ in who is being abused more by the other, in an effort to demonize the other.

This dichotomous view of the world is unhealthy and only fuels more of the same. It’s time to abandon this medieval view of the world–this senseless ‘us vs them’ mentality–and let the peace lovers from both sides work towards a harmonious existence free from such communal strife. Perhaps even this phraseology of ‘peace lovers from both sides‘ is to be abandoned, since we are not two sides any more but now part of the same community, and as one community–of all different faiths (or no faith at all)–we need to extinguish to irrelevancy the voices of the hatemongers whose destructive rhetoric culminates in such dastardly acts like the one we so painfully report herein.

Michael Goldfarb

President Barack Obama is an iconic figure that inspires heated discussion on many topics as he is not easy to pigeonhole into one category or label. One topic that has and will continue to strangely garner absurd and heated discussion is the topic of Obama and his relation to Islam and Muslims.

In a recent manifestation of such absurdity, a blog post by Michael Goldfarb on The Weekly Standard surmised that Obama’s use of the Arabic word Shukrun, which means ‘thank you,’ somehow denoted that Obama knows more about Islam than he is letting on,

Obama has said before that he speaks “barely passable Spanish” and “a smattering of Swahili,” as well as some Bahasa from his youth in Indonesia. But Obama has at other times denied speaking a foreign language, saying in July of last year, “I don’t speak a foreign language. It’s embarrassing!“…One wonders if the president hasn’t been concealing some greater fluency with the language of the Koran.

The bigotry is on live display in the above quote and Eric Boehlert at Media Matters rightfully pointed out that “Goldfarb does his best to to raise doubts about whether or not Obama secretly speaks Arabic.” Goldfarb doesn’t pause to consider that not only is Arabic the “language of the Koran” but it is also the language of millions of Christians from various denominations, many of whom sing their prayers and recite their liturgy in Arabic — i.e. no one has a monopoly over a particular language.

Goldfarb also might have missed, probably because he doesn’t speak Arabic, that Obama mispronounced the Arabic word Hijab (veil) incorrectly as Hajib during his speech in Cairo.

So continues the theater of looniness in which Obama is considered a closet Muslim and because he used an Arabic word we should now be even more suspicious of him.

The truth is that this is just another manifestation of the unconscious hatred felt by many in the right-wing for all things Islam. The hope is to secure some cheap political points by somehow tainting all percieved enemies of the right-wing with associations to Islam and Muslims — the new boogey men of America. How long will the right-wing believe they can pull this on Americans? Only fellow Americans can answer that one.