Muscular Liberals

LOONEY TOONS IV

Sadly I was away from the capital this weekend and off-line too which provided a welcome relief from the madness which resulted in the disgusting scenes of protesters demanding beheadings for those insulting Islam. This LGF potatoshop sums up the attitude of these extremists quite nicely:



Perhaps surprisingly, The MCB's Inayat Bunglawala said something vaguely sensible:

“It is time the police acted, but in a way so as not to make them martyrs of the Prophet’s cause, which is what they want, but as criminals. Ordinary Muslims are fed up with them.”

That last sentence is very true. But the sentence before it betrays Bunglawala's position on free speech. He's all for it as long as he agrees with what's being said. As David T points out over at Harry's Place:

This isn't an appeal for more law governing speech, but less. Demonstrators should be allowed to say whatever they think. I want to know what they think. More to the point, I want people in this country to know, generally, what sort of things extreme Islamists believe.

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We shouldn't be wasting court time on a bunch of wankers who dress up as sucide bombers and stroll around in front of an Embassy. And we should be standing up for anybody arrested for protesting, peacefully, against those demonstrators.

Quite right. In the past BNP and NF marches have been met with strong counter-protests. It's an outrage that we in the UK have failed to mount serious counter-protests against the likes of the Al Quds March and in the current climate it's imperative that we do. Not only would this let the extremists know we're not going to lie down and accept their demands, but it could also provide a platform for Muslims who are sick to the back teeth of the fundamentalists who are currently trying to take their religion back to the Dark Ages.

Unsurprisingly, Bunglawala's rhetoric was not matched by al-Mujahiroun's ex-leader Omar Bakri Muhammad:

Earlier, the exiled radical cleric, Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, called for the people behind the Danish cartoons that have caused outrage and offence around the Muslim world "to be tried and executed".

The Syrian-born preacher, who left Britain last August and has since been banned from returning, warned that countries that refused to put people on trial for insulting Muhammad must "face the consequences".

No doubt he's quite pleased with the progress his Al Ghurabaa thugs are making.

Of course, the hand-wringers were out in force this weekend, the finest example being the Return of the Fisk in the Independent. Scott Burgess at the Ablution gives this article one the best fiskings I've seen in a long while:

"So let's start off with the Department of Home Truths. This is not an issue of secularism versus Islam."

An interesting hypothesis - one which, having stated, Mr. Fisk proceeds to immediately disprove:

"For Muslims, the Prophet is the man who received divine words directly from God. We see our prophets as faintly historical figures, at odds with our high-tech human rights, almost caricatures of themselves. The fact is that Muslims live their religion. We do not. They have kept their faith through innumerable historical vicissitudes. We have lost our faith ever since Matthew Arnold wrote about the sea's 'long, withdrawing roar'. That's why we talk about 'the West versus Islam' rather than 'Christians versus Islam'- because there aren't an awful lot of Christians left in Europe."

So let me get this straight. "This is not an issue of secularism versus Islam" - the reason being that Europeans are secular and Muslims are not. "That's why we talk about 'the West versus Islam' rather than 'Christians versus Islam'". He's really not doing his point any favours here, is he?

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"This is not a great time to heat up the old Samuel Huntingdon garbage about a 'clash of civilisations'. Iran now has a clerical government again. So, to all intents and purposes, does Iraq (which was not supposed to end up with a democratically elected clerical administration, but that's what happens when you topple dictators). In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood won 20 per cent of the seats in the recent parliamentary elections. Now we have Hamas in charge of 'Palestine'. There's a message here, isn't there?"

Why yes, there is. The message is that the Muslim world is turning increasingly to theocracy, with all of its strictures on speech and action, medieval punishments and the like. Meanwhile, as Mr. Fisk himself points out, free Europe has become increasingly secular (except for the burgeoning Muslim communities in its midst). As all but the willfully blind can now see, this is precisely the clash that Mr. Fisk denies so stubbornly, and so ineffectually.

As we've come to expect from Fisk, everything bad that happens in the world is our fault. Read it all.

Finally, it wouldn't be right not to give an honourable mention to the Arab European League who decided, no doubt in a bid to defend free speech, to post a couple of antisemitic cartoons on their frontpage (Hat tip LGF & HP).

I guess now we sit and wait for all the Zionist extremists to start setting fire to AEL HQ and calling for headchoppings, no?

This story sits rather nicely with a little number courtesy of Filibuster Cartoons:



Heh.

posted by Dan @ 7:01 pm