Muslim Heretics Conference

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Louisville, KY —  The term “politically correct,” is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary thus: “Of, relating to, or supporting broad social, political, and educational change, especially to redress historical injustices in matters such as race, class, gender, and sexual orientation.” Add to that litany of “historical injustices” the title of my New York Times bestseller: “American Heroes in the Fight Against Radical Islam.”

In recent weeks, the vocabulary police opened a new front in the War on Terror by issuing a list of “do’s” and “don’ts” for terrorism terminology. In an effort to fight a “kinder, gentler” war on Islamic radicals, the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in consultation with unnamed Islamic interest groups, has issued a paper entitled, “Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims.”

This policy document warns U.S. government officials against “using theological terms, particularly those in Arabic even if such usage is benign or overtly positive. Islamic law and terms come with a particular context, which may not always be apparent.” Homeland Security’s paper counsels: “It is one thing for a Muslim leader to use a particular term; an American official may simply not have the religious authority to be taken seriously, even when using terms appropriately.”

In other words, we infidels have no “street cred” in the Islamic world.

We are told that we should no longer use words and phrases such as “jihadist,” “Islamic terrorist,” “Islamist,” and “holy warrior.” Using the word “Islamic,” the experts have advised us, may “concede the terrorists’ claim that they are legitimate adherents of Islam.”

At best, this advice is seriously flawed. At worst, it is an ominous recipe that invites defeat, for it begs us to ignore who it is that has declared war against the West in general — and the U.S. in particular. The authors urge us to disregard the first axiom of war: if you don’t know your enemy —- you will lose.

In an interview with Bernard Lewis, the dean of Mideast scholars, for FOX News’ “War Stories,” he contrasted the way we fought fascism during World War II with the current conflict. He said, “Then we knew who the enemy was. We knew who we were. Nowadays…we have great difficulty in defining the enemy. We have to be careful not to offend anybody. We don’t even seem to be able to define our own cause, let alone the enemy’s. This kind of uncertainty makes it very difficult to carry on any sort of struggle.”

Unfortunately, the DHS policy paper — drafted with the help of anonymous “influential Muslim Americans” — not only makes the current struggle more difficult — it is also riddled with outright falsehoods. The document states, that “The civilized world is facing a global challenge, which transcends geography, culture, and religion.” That statement defies reality. We didn’t label Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Jamiyah Islamiyah and Mahdi Army murderers — to name just a few of the groups I have seen in action – “Muslim holy warriors” — they did. We didn’t call their savage suicidal bombing campaign an “Islamic jihad” — they did.

The Homeland Security document insists that “Islam and secular democracy are fully compatible — in fact, they can make each other stronger. Senior officials should emphasize this positive fact.” That “positive fact” simply isn’t. Save for Iraq and Afghanistan where U.S. troops have become the protectors of Muslim women and nascent representative political institutions, there is no Islamic majority country where “secular democracy” flourishes. We didn’t create these realities — Muslim leaders did.

Reality has little to do with this new wave of political correctness — and it goes well beyond this new DHS policy document. Muneer Fareed of the Islamic Society of North America told the Washington Times that he has contacted Senator John McCain’s office to urge him to “rethink word usage that is more acceptable to the Muslim community.” Mr. Fareed is upset that McCain consistently refers to “radical Islamic extremism.”

In London, the British government’s Home Office has advised government officials that they should use words such as “violent extremism” instead of “terrorism.” When fanatics carry out horrific attacks on innocent civilians in the name of Islam, the perpetrators should be referred to as “criminals” instead of “terrorists.”

Not to be outdone in the political correctness department, the European Union has come up with guidelines on how to talk about terrorists who are literally dying to kill us. It warns that, “Unintended stigmatization resulting from an ill-considered choice of words may have serious negative psychological effects and thus contribute to the process of radicalization.” In other words, it’s all our fault.

If we succumb to this kind of mindless mumbo-jumbo and double-speak to describe the Islamic radicals who are trying to kill us, we’re courting uncertainty and defeat. Or, as one very politically incorrect soldier put it plainly during a book signing this afternoon, “we’re screwed.”

Oliver North hosts War Stories: The Desert War on the FOX News Channel, Monday, May 19 at 3:00 a.m. ET.

FOXNews.com - Terror Terminology - Oliver North | War Stories

 

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: “The pen(cil) is mightier than the sword,” said British playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton

A Dutch Internet cartoonist was arrested and then released again on suspicion of publishing work that is discriminatory against Muslims and people of color, Amsterdam police disclosed on Friday, May 16.

A police spokesman said authorities searched the cartoonist’s home, that the arrest took place Wednesday, and the artist was released a day later.

The spokesman could not confirm whether the cartoonist, who goes by the artistic name Gregorius Nekschot — Dutch for “shot in the neck” — would be charged by the public prosecutor.

“He was arrested with a great show of force, by around 10 policemen,” a spokeswoman for publisher Uitgeverij Xtra told the Associated Press on Friday. She asked that her name not be used because the cartoonist and publisher have received death threats.

Nekschot is known primarily for cartoons mocking Muslims and leftists, though the spokeswoman said he is a satirist who targets “any strong ideology.”

The arrest follows an investigation by the public prosecutor after Imam Abdul Jabbar van de Ven, a well-known Dutch convert to Islam, filed a complaint about Nekschot’s cartoons in 2005.

Nekschot’s work is primarily published on the Internet. His Web site divides his work over more than 10 categories, including “science” and “modern life.” Most of Nekschot’s cartoons feature Muslims and people of color.

Racial and religious tension has been high in the Netherlands since a Dutch newspaper published 12 cartoons depicting the Muslim Prophet Mohammed in September 2005. The publication and subsequent republication sparked demonstrations and riots in several countries.

Dutch Cartoonist Arrested, Released for Anti-Muslim Drawings | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 16.05.2008

Misconceptions About Obama and Islam

Numerous pundits have attempted to scare Americans away from Barack Obama’s candidacy by refusing to recognize his belief in Christianity, instead “revealing” his Muslim identity. It follows, then, that because of the presumed dramatic policy implications of this ostensibly negative affiliation, Americans should vote for John McCain or Hillary Clinton.

In his New York Times May 12 op-ed “President Apostate,” Edward Luttwak correctly repudiates this notion. Nevertheless, he takes this alarmism and fear-mongering another direction, contending that while Obama certainly is a Christian, Muslims will not – no, cannot – accept this faith choice. “In Muslim eyes,” Obama committed apostasy. This crime will cause the average Muslim to hold him in contempt, thereby rendering improved relations between the U.S. and Islamic world impossible, and some radicals may even attempt to take his life.

Luttwak’s false logic must be rejected for a number of reasons.

First of all, what are these “Muslim eyes?” Do all Muslims hold the same opinion? Luttwak’s description of Islam’s stance on apostasy requires a uniformity and simplicity that does not exist. While most classical Muslim jurists did stipulate execution for the apostate from Islam, they offered critical distinctions between men and women, children and adults, the sane and insane, born Muslims and converts to Islam. As the legal schools disagreed on how various provisions were properly applied to these respective categories, jurists never achieved universal consensus on the proper legal implications of apostasy.

More significantly, innumerable contemporary Muslim jurists understand the issue of apostasy differently from their predecessors. This includes even prominent conservative scholars like Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, rector of the world’s most important Islamic university, Al-Azhar. They contend that the injunctions upon Muslims to fight apostates always occurred within the context of the latter’s active rebellion against the Muslim community, not the changing of religion alone. Whereas in the past, rejecting Islam constituted a political act of treason and a serious threat to the state, today’s circumstances have fundamentally changed. Consequently, these scholars are revisiting Islam’s primary sources to offer cogent interpretations of this contentious issue.

They point to the Qur’an’s ubiquitous injunctions to respect freedom of conscience and belief and the fact that it never demands a temporal penalty for apostasy. Furthermore, they reference the leniency exhibited during the life of the Prophet. For example, the terms of the famous 628 Treaty of al-Hudaybiyah, which established a 10-year truce between the Medinan Muslims and the polytheist Meccan Qurayshis, stipulated that converts to Islam who had escaped to Medina without their guardian’s consent be returned to Mecca; meanwhile, Muslim apostates who had fled Medina were permitted to remain in Mecca. As a result, these scholars either reject capital punishment for apostates or restrict its application to very specific circumstances. In short, they offer exactly what is missing from Luttwak’s piece: context and nuance.

His reference to “Muslim law” as if it were a historical and uncontested object is both inaccurate and insulting. Simply because certain Muslims may offer distorted interpretations and present them as the “true Islam,” we are not compelled to accept these readings as representing all Muslims or Islam itself. By doing just this, Luttwak naively affirms their perspective and undermines the vast majority of Muslims who reject violent interpretations of the religion. We do not accept the Religious Right as the exclusive embodiment of Christianity or the Kahanes as defining Judaism for all Jews, so why must we do so with Islam? Luttwak’s reductive understanding only serves to strike up fear, and it certainly benefits those extremists who claim to represent Islam.

In addition, Luttwak’s attempt to argue that Obama’s “apostasy” will become a political problem in the Islamic world is absurd. He guarantees that though Muslims are now unaware of Obama’s background, “once it became widely known,” this will “compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.” First of all, does he really believe that most Muslims are not already familiar with Obama’s family history? The lack of attention this issue has received in the Islamic world cannot be attributed to Muslim ignorance, but rather, it indicates the issue’s inconsequence therein.

Moreover, Luttwak wrongly assumes that Muslims’ irrationally and characteristic inability to recognize the freedom of others will trump their desire to better relations with the U.S. On the contrary, if Obama’s policies are sensitive and fair, our relationship with the Islamic world will improve and American security will be enhanced. His religion is an afterthought, at best.

While Luttwak is correct to question the projection of others’ hopes on Obama, including among some Muslims, his alarmist attitude towards Islam and political engagement with Muslims must be rejected as naive and ultimately, destructive. Rather, the first step to enhancing relations with the Islamic world is to recognize the diversity of thought within Muslim communities around the globe and to commit to engagement with Muslim nations as full partners, not irrational actors driven exclusively by their religion.

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Daisy Khan: Misconceptions About Obama and Islam - On Faith at washingtonpost.com