The Great Sahara Shakedown, Yet Again

Muamar Ghadafi, the wacky, blonde-loving, tent-dwelling, playboy Libyan dictator and man of many spellings, is at it again: he is demanding payments from the European Union to keep black Africans from crossing his country to reach the Mediterranean. These desperate migrants never pause in Libya — which is not a congenial place for non-Arabs — but strive as soon as possible to cross over to Spain, France, and Italy, where they can live in luxury at state expense. They thereby also gain access to the entire European Union, and can head further north to Sweden and Norway, where the pickings are even fatter.

Col. Qadaffi has pulled this shakedown before, but was evidently dissatisfied with the results, and wants the EU to cough up again — this time to the tune of €5 billion. He seems to assume the EUniks are so desperate to keep equatorial Africans out of Europe that they will pay whatever he asks.

Below are two articles about the latest antics from the Colonel of the Sand Dunes. First, from ANSAmed:

TRIPOLI, NOVEMBER 29 — The European Union should give 5 billion euros to Libya to “stop” illegal immigrants, otherwise “an entire continent will pour into Europe”. This is according to the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, who has again made demands from Europe during the EU-Africa summit.

“In order to stop illegal immigration, something significant must be done, otherwise an entire continent will pour into Europe. If Europe gives us 5 billion euros, Libya will be able to stem the flow,” said the Libyan leader, repeating a request made in Rome in August.

“The only country that collaborates with us is Italy,” said Gaddafi with regards to tackling illegal immigration, adding that “Italy is a civilised country that has made up for its past” as a colonising country.

During his speech at the opening of the summit, Gaddafi said that “Libya is the filter of immigration” coming from all over Africa.

“Africa and Europe are the spine of the world and must cooperate,” Gaddafi said. On immigration, he reasserted that “the only country that collaborates with us is Italy. Thanks to our cooperation with them, we have been able to exert control over immigration”.

Regarding the request for 5 billion euros per year from Europe, the Libyan leader said: “We do not need to beg for help, but we want investments”. (ANSAmed).

“Investments”, eh?

In other words: “That’s a nice little continent you’ve got there. Wouldn’t like to see anything happen to it…”

And, as the The Telegraph reports, Col. Qadafi employed a turn of phrase that would have earned him a charge of “hate speech” if he weren’t a person of color himself:

Allah the Imaginary

An EDL protester was recently fined £200 for “making offensive comments about Allah” during a demonstration in Leicester. Even though police officers and the EDL were the only ones able to hear what he said, the prosecution said people were “likely to be offended” and the police were “likely to have been alarmed”. His words were considered “threatening, abusive or insulting” and likely to cause “harassment, alarm or distress”.

The convicted man said he did not think he would offend anyone.

But suppose he had intended offense? Why is that a legal issue?

Why is offending someone the sole basis for prosecution in countries that supposedly uphold civil liberties for their citizens?

Vlad Tepes and I discussed the issue for a while and devised the following response:



(Click to enlarge)
This became a Vlad-Baron joint venture, with Vlad doing the video and the talking, and me doing the image and the spelling — a win-win for everyone.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
“Allah is Mohammed’s Imaginary Friend”

We are launching a new protest campaign that aims to drive a wedge into the thin crack between leftists and the Muslims.

We’re going to do this with this image [point at it], and the slogan: “Allah is Mohammed’s Imaginary Friend”.

We aim for protesters to get arrested for having a picture that shows Mohammed talking to a giant bunny.

In fact, participants must insist on being arrested, and on being tried.

By doing this we proclaim our fundamental rights, which were not granted to us, but were always ours, and are only now being taken away by the tyranny of state power.

These rights include the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and the freedom of religion — including the right to have no religion at all.

We will go to jail for saying that Allah is imaginary.

We will say nothing about Muslims being violent.

We will say nothing insulting at all, only that their god is imaginary. If someone chooses to be insulted by this, that is his decision.

Any atheist has the right to say what we say. It is one of our fundamental freedoms.

Vlad suggests that people download the image from his site and make T-shirts for themselves and friends, for placards, signs, posters, etc.

At demonstrations, participants should chant the slogan while waving a card or sign.

And everyone should stick to the slogan, and not be sidetracked into calling Muslims “thugs” and so on, because that just supports the idea that we are evil insulting people.

Stick to message, and go to jail for saying that Allah is imaginary.

Simple, yet effective.

Even the most diehard leftists will choke hard when they are forced to condemn us as “racists”.

Muslims will be offended, of course, and that will serve as grounds for our arrest.

This will only serve to emphasize that all speech that does not agree with the Koran and the hadith and the sunna of the prophet is offensive to Muslims, and must be prohibited.

And the fact that our governments prohibit it means that they are enforcing full sharia upon everyone, not just on Muslims.

Which is a violation of our rights, the same rights that our government claims to protect when they arrest us for saying that Allah is Mohammed’s imaginary friend.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
Vlad’s video about Allah the Imaginary is below the jump, to foil the Blogger Bug:

Dying for What?

Below is the latest video from the French Defence League. Many thanks to Bear for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Burqa Approved for Swimming in Western Australia

The Western Australian health authorities have decided to make an exception for burqa-like swimwear in public swimming pools, on the basis of religious beliefs. Past complaints have cost them dearly in civil lawsuit payouts, so an adjustment to the official policy became necessary.

If non-Muslims were to wear similar clothing, it would be considered unhygienic, and they would not be allowed in the pool. But the magic of Islam can perform many wonders, and one of them seems to be to reverse bad hygiene. Say the shahada, and presto! The bacteria flee from the scene.

According to the local news in WA:

Health Policy Overhaul on Back of Burqa

CONTROVERSY surrounding the swim attire worn by some Islamic women has prompted the development of a new policy on dress standards for the WA aquatic industry.

The WA Health Department and Office of Multicultural Affairs have approved the Leisure Institute of WA’s new policy for public swimming pools and its rollout is imminent.

Work began on the policy after a Muslim woman and her friends were stopped from using the pool and water slides at Adventure World in February 2009 because of their religious dress.

The Equal Opportunities Commission took up the case and the woman was awarded $16,000 compensation and an apology in May this year.

The EOC confirmed it has dealt with several similar cases since.

Gates of Vienna News Feed 11/29/2010

Two nuclear scientists in Iran were attacked today by bombers who rode motorcycles. The motorcyclists approached the vehicles and attached small bombs to their windows. One of the two scientists was killed, and the other was seriously injured.

In other news, the fallout continues from the massive new Wikileaks document release. Various politicians — including Silvio Berlusconi, Angela Merkel, and Hillary Clinton — have been forced to react to the revelations, some of them not at all flattering.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, DF, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JD, JP, Kitman, Lexington, Nilk, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Smear Attacks on the PVV

In recent weeks, members of the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands have been subjected to a series of smear attacks in the media.

Here’s a minor example of just one tiny little smear, an ‘infographics’ for a TV recent show. Many thanks to our Flemish correspondent VH for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling.

I’ve placed the video (and the transcript) below the jump, to avoid the “Blogger bug”:

Discreet Influences

Below is a fascinating essay by Olavo de Carvalho about René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon. The article was originally published in Jornal do Brasil, and was translated from the Portuguese by Alessandro Cota and Bruno Mori for the author’s website.

I admit to an unfamiliarity with Guénon and Schuon, but from browsing the online information about the two men, it seems that they would probably have been labeled Theosophists if they had lived in the Anglosphere.


Discreet influences
by Olavo de Carvalho
Jornal do Brasil, May 8, 2008

Translated by Alessandro Cota and Bruno Mori

When the Swiss painter and poet Frithjof Schuon (1907—1998) returned from the East in the forties, transfigured into the supreme master of one of the most influential Muslim esoteric organizations and announcing that he would Islamize Europe, he gave the clear impression of being completely mad. Today it behooves us to examine with humility his words and the course of his actions, whose overwhelming efficiency contrasts with the total discretion with which they were undertaken.

To begin with, the creation of Schuon’s tariqah (Islamic initiation lodge) in Lausanne was hailed by the esoteric writer René Guénon (1886—1951) as the only promising result of his own efforts of four decades. This clearly shows the meaning of those efforts and, the later rupture between Guénon and Schuon notwithstanding, evinces the perfect continuity of the work of these two esoterists, whose respective disciples nowadays prefer hating one another to celebrating the common victory over a spiritually weakened Europe.

Guénon, the author of masterly analyses of the decay of the European West, had concluded in the 1920s that only three roads offered themselves to this civilization: the fall into barbarism, the restoration of the Catholic Church, or Islamization. On uttering those words about Frithjof Schuon, he had already given up the second alternative. The fiasco of the Second Vatican Council, whose appearances the popes have in vain been trying to save, proved in the end that his diagnosis was, in outline, correct.

The radically de-Christianized Europe is today the stage of an open strife between barbarism and Islamism. There is no third way, apparently (“secular civilization” is a joke). The possibility of rescuing the Christian option depends entirely on the American influence or on the admirable dedication of Eastern and African priests and pastors, who, in a paradoxical turn of history, have come to try to recatechize the people by whom they were Christianized.

Wilders Trial to Resume February 7

Geert Wilders will go on trial again on February 7th. Many thanks to our Flemish correspondent VH for translating this brief item from de Rechtspraak:

Amsterdam, Wednesday, November 24, 2010 — The criminal case against Mr. Wilders will be continued on Monday, February 7, 2011 at 10:00 in the Amsterdam court. The session begins with a public directional hearing where the parties may reveal what their wishes are concerning the continuation of the case. The court initially had proposed to continue in mid-December 2010, but it turned out that too many parties involved were unable to attend during that time period.

Setting the Record Straight — Again

Earlier today, in a post at Jihad Watch about the current assault on free speech, Robert Spencer had this to say about Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff’s case (and kindly included a link to Elisabeth’s Save Free Speech website):

Meanwhile, in Austria the kangaroo trial of freedom fighter Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff for telling the truth about Islam has begun. Latest updates here. I offered to testify on Elisabeth’s behalf in that case, and the offer still stands; I’ll be keeping you updated on that case as well.

This was not in fact a full account of what happened.

I left a comment on the post (it was comment #7 at the time) to clarify the train of events. Shortly after I posted my comment at Jihad Watch, a reader pointed out that it had been inexplicably deleted.

Below is a screen cap of the full text of my comment as it appeared at the time of posting:


I’ll reproduce the entire text below the jump.

Elisabeth obviously did respond to Mr. Spencer’s offer, although as of post time he has not yet acknowledged that fact publicly.

In the four-day gap between Mr. Spencer’s withdrawal of his original offer and his apparent change of mind, Elisabeth became quite concerned about whether or not she had enough experts on Islam to call as potential witnesses during the next phase of her trial. She quickly contacted other knowledgeable people, and was fortunate to find additional experts — people who were closer by, in Europe — to assist her at the trial. For that reason, she declined any further help from Robert Spencer.

So that’s what happened. Elisabeth is not ungrateful for Mr. Spencer’s offers of help. Under stress in the face of what lay ahead, she simply needed a firm commitment, and was able to secure that promptly from others.

In case the above image is hard to read, here’s the full text of my comment before it was deleted from Jihad Watch:

Muezzins? Yes! Yodelers? No!

Our German translator JLH sends this interesting little news story from Austria about the crackdown on an annoying yodeler. He says:

Here is a little item from Austria outside of Vienna that may be humorously horrifying. Politically Incorrect has a link to SOS-Oesterreich, where we find that ironically this Bosnian Muslim community that complained about the yodeling is the very one that is being allowed to build the first mosque with minaret in Graz. Just imagine Roy Rogers being handcuffed and led away from the microphone because he had offended some institution down the street that was blaring the call to prayer loud enough to rattle the dishes for a mile around.

And his translation from Politically Incorrect:

Styria: Yodeler Fined 800 Euros
November 27, 2010

Why is a blameless 63-year old retiree who yodeled while cutting his grass fined 800 Euros, you ask? Right: Muslims perceived the yodeling of Helmut G. to be an insult to their religious feelings. They complained to the court — and received justice.

The Austria KRONE online reports on an incredible judicial scandal. Helmut G. was busy on Friday afternoon, mowing his grass. “And because I was just in such a good mood, I yodeled along with it and sang a few songs,” says the retiree, speaking to the Styrian Crown. That was not all right with his neighbors — believing Muslims. They had gathered in their house at prayer hour, which was also broadcast into their yard by loudspeaker.

“Wasn’t Trying to Sound Like the Muezzin”

Gates of Vienna News Feed 11/28/2010

The big news story of the day concerns the latest document dump of classified material from Wikileaks. This time the incriminating documents are diplomatic cables sent to and from American embassies and consulates overseas. Included in the embarrassing information that was exposed:

• President Obama has a low opinion of British Prime Minister David Cameron.
  
• Washington is worried about Islamic fundamentalists in the Turkish government.
  
• Saudi Arabia urged a military attack to stop Iran from getting the bomb.
  
• Hillary Clinton ordered that foreign diplomats at the UN be spied upon.

…and much, much more.

In other news, despite the dire state of finances in the European Union, the European Court of Justice ruled that the 3.7% pay increase for EU officials in Brussels must not be cut.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, DF, DL, Gaia, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, JD, Klein Verzet, McR, Nick, Nilk, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

The Principle of Abrogation in the Quran

Michael Mannheimer returns with another guest-essay. The original German version was published on March 23, 2010 at Politically Incorrect.


The Principle of Abrogation in the Quran
by Michael Mannheimer

Translation: Anders Denken and Tim Biagiotti

The trick behind the apparent inconsistency of the Quran and why the radical Muslims are always correct

Like no other holy book among the world religions, the Quran contains an abundance of contradictory expressions. What is forbidden in one place is expressly demanded in another, and vice versa. However, the contradictory quality of the Quran is only an apparent one. It falls apart abruptly when one recognizes the very carefully protected secret hidden within the architecture of the Quran. For the Quranic Suras (chapters) are not arranged chronologically, but rather according to their length — and the newer Suras (from Muhammad’s violent later phase when he was in Medina) override the older ones from his era in Mecca that were comparatively more peaceful. However, this secret is guarded by Islamic scholars very closely as if it were a holy grail — and is aired only on particular occasions.

Contents

Part 1: Introductory Thoughts
Part 2: Notes Regarding the Inconsistencies of the Quran
Part 3: The Solution to the Quran’s Inconsistencies
Part 4: Summation

1. Introductory Thoughts

The plainly crucial question: Is Islam peaceful or dangerous?

In spite of the fact that almost all international terror acts of the last decade have been carried out by Muslims, Islamic scholars insist that Islam is a “religion of peace.” As the underpinning for their thesis, they cite Quran verses such as like Sura 5 verse 32, according to which the one who “kills a person,” shall be “like one who has murdered the whole of mankind.”¹

Critics of Islam confront Muslims about this with Suras that demand the opposite: namely the murder of infidels. Thus in Sura 47 verse 4, it says: “And if you meet the infidels, then off with their head until you have spread a massacre among them.”

Almost every media report about Islam and nearly all talk shows with and about Muslims and their faith revolve around the central question of whether Islam is a religion of peace or of terror. And most of the reports and talk shows consistently finish the same way: the mostly uninformed viewer is exactly as knowledgeable as before. For the defenders of Islam cite ostensibly peaceful Quran verses while their critics point to the countless terrorist acts of violence that are carried out by Muslims in the name of Islam. Like with communism once upon a time, nowadays the Muslim advocates also answer with the remark that those violent acts have nothing to do with Islam. And like the communists back then, most Muslims today also regularly suppress the reports of the thousands of atrocities and human rights offenses — committed in the countries of Islam and the countries of “infidels” — in their debates and in contrast point to the alleged guilt of the West, to its colonization and capitalism as the real cause for that terror. As communists did in their time, Muslims and their Western apologists assert today that the worldwide terror acts result from the “understandable” and desperate condition of the poorest in the face of the dominance and humiliation from the West, and in reality have nothing to do with Islam.

However, the facts speak a totally different language. In the Index of Christian Persecution by Open Doors that lists the 50 worst countries for persecution of Christians, 40 places are occupied by Islamic states — in the highest position. And in the Anticorruption Index of the UN, Islamic states consistently show as the most corrupt power structures on our planet. And the majority of applicants for asylum in Western lands originate from Islamic countries in which almost all human rights are systematically denied (in Holland for example, some nine out of ten applicants are from Islamic countries).

Since the first days of their religion, Muslims have shown themselves incapable of searching out possible causes for their disaster. Islam’s complete incapability of exercising self-criticism and self-examination on one side, and the pathological, all-encompassing self-loathing of the West on the other, form fruitful ideological humus, and on this fertile ground Islam is currently spreading with a historically unmatched speed in the countries of the West, and has additionally become greatest danger in history to the cultural and ideological survival of Western culture.

Islam is neither anticapitalist nor anticolonialist, nor does it aim for the equality of all people.

For Islam deals neither with the abolition of capitalism nor with the abolition of colonialism, and especially does not concern itself with the abolition of human and individual equality. Islam is, and has always been, capitalistically structured: from the very beginning it has supported itself less by production and more by trade. With its international trade practices, Muslim marketers have acquired much influence and affluence by the most inexpensive purchase possible of undesired products and then the subsequent sale of those products in other places for maximum profit. According to Marxist terminology, such trade, which appropriates the surplus value of the poor but value-determining proletariat (for the earlier era of Islam, they were day-workers and poor plantation workers) without letting them participate in the profit, is termed “capitalism” as defined by Marx and Lenin.

And from the very beginning, Muslims have fallen upon foreign people, colonized them, and where possible Islamized them, and preyed upon their productivity in the form of taxes. Islamic imperialism already existed long before Western imperialism, whether in North African states (that were primarily Christian and Jewish), or in Spain (Cordoba Islam), or in the conquest and imperial assimilation of the early Jewish-Christian Middle East, or by the attack and partial conquest of India costing millions of Hindus their lives and nearly wiping out the peacefully minded Buddhists, who had no defence against the murderous attacks of the Arabs. Also the Ottoman kingdom was an Islamic empire, long before the Spaniards, Portuguese and English colonized foreign peoples. However, in politically correct fashion, the imperialistic aspect of Islam has been and is to this day completely ignored by sociologists, political scientists, Islam scientists and historians.

The Swiss Referendum on Deportation

Below is a news report from Swiss television about today’s referendum on the deportation of convicted foreign criminals.

Many thanks to Steen for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

ESW at Trykkefrihedsselskabet

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff spoke yesterday at a conference sponsored by IFPS at Trykkefrihedsselskabet (the Danish Free Press Society) in Copenhagen.

Below is a video recording of her speech, followed by a very interesting question and answer session. One of the more intriguing questions is raised by the Dutch author Arthur Legger, who suggests that it is time for an international pooling of legal talent — a Europe-wide consortium of lawyers — to fight the EU’s “hate speech” laws.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this video. The sound is a bit peculiar, because it has been adjusted to filter out the background noise. Vlad says he is working to improve it:


The text of Elisabeth’s speech is here. The video above departs only slightly from the prepared text, but the Q&A is obviously not included at all.

Previous posts about the hate speech case against Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff: