The Kicking In Of A Rotten Door Part 7

The Road To Damascus Leads Straight To Hell.

It has been a long time since I have fired up the computer to do one of these missives. My Internet life has been busy with Tom Foolery and the occasional blast on Taylor Marsh. But the events in Syria have gone from bad to worse, and it is past time to think about that corner of the world again.

The situation is this: the Free Syrian Army controls much of the ground but the regime owns the air. Neither of the parties has any real advantage but both sides are convinced they can win. That means the ordinary people of Syria are the big loosers. 

The situation is much like Lebanon for the last part of the 20^th Century, a long, slow, deadly civil where the major powers are helpless in finding a solution. In this round China and Russia are blocking any big ideas from NATO or the US. Local powers like Iran and the Gulf States are adding to the misery by supporting the two contesting sides in the Syrian debacle.

If that were not bad enough, non-state independent actors are now too in the fray. Our unhappy campers of the re-branded, and restaffed Al Qaeda are back in business in Syria. Granted, this is not your father’s Al Qaeda as Bin Laden’s bones have been picked clean by shrimp and other sea scavengers. No, this is a new bunch of Salafi radicals and misfits butchering for fun and profits.

But wait, there’s more! In the north of this fine mess, both the Kurds and the Turks are slowly being sucked into the vortex. The Kurds have been cut loose by the Assad regime because it can no longer support the troops needed to suppress the people of the mountains. With the Kurds now in charge of their own destiny ( if only by default ) Turkey now has to deal with the repercussions. The low, simmering conflict Turkey has with its own Kurds has once again flared up just when the Turks had thought they had finally squared the circle.

And if that was not bad enough for Ankara, Syria is shelling into the border of Turkey. National borders, national pride, are on the line for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and he has responded as any leader would, by sending in the military. The affected border is now bristling with Turkish soldiers and all that nice shiny military hardware that Turkey has been busily upgrading to.

Still, Ankara can not get too feisty as the Russians are close by with a Navy in both Sevastopol and in Syria itself. Russia can also reach the Turks by air if needs be and not violate any airspace other than the Turks in doing so. Erdoğan can only do so much saber-rattling as both domestic politics and the Russians are limiting factors.

I left out President Obama in this discussion because he has been remarkably reticent in offering any leadership on Syria. This is for a reason gentle reader; Barack’s options are very limited. 

The position of the United States in Syria is very dicey. Obama did come out for regime change way back in the salad days of the Arab Spring. But now that the Spring has transitioned to a brutal, white-hot summer in Syria, the president has become far less enthusiastic about showing Assad the door. Washington has provided support for the Gulf State’s interdictions; but other than cloak and dagger work, the White House has studiously avoided more dramatic options. This is all to the good because DC already has its plate full with Iraq, Iran, the stealth war in Pakistan, plus the dust up in Aden. The military-industrial-congressional complex is stretched to to breaking point. Only fools and NeoCon intellectuals (pretty much the same thing) are gung-ho for an intervention in Syria. Nothing brought out this fact more that Willard Romney’s flaccid debate performance on foreign affairs. True to form Mitt criticized Barack but offered no counter proposal. When even Romney won’t touch Syria you know exactly how radio-active it is.

Because of that radioactivity, Syria will continue to suffer, bleed and die. The World Community will fold its hand and mutter “dear me” while the Iranians with the Russians and Chinese duke it out with the FSA and the Gulf States. The land of Syria will slowly bleed out as a form of the Great Game is played out. Assad wants to cling to power. The Iranians want the buffer Assad offers for both geo-political and religious regions. China and Russia want the Assad status quo for their own different reasons. China does not want US power projected into Syria as it was in Libya. Russia wants to keep its only presence in the Med. Meanwhile the conservative Gulf states want to kill off Assad and his Shia-lead state. They want this for matters of state- to push Iran back, and they want it to further enlarge Sunni Arab hegemony in the region.  

It is that effort, the Saudi Salafist project and its attempt to enforce its brand of Islam on the rest of the Umma that is the real unexplored issue, the elephant in the room, that no one seems to want to talk about. I can think of no worse outcome than an emboldened, aggressive, hegemonistic, Saudi Salafalist Islam gaining even more traction. The reactionary, regressive and ultimately wrong-headed attempt to return to a mythical “pure” Islam of the past will only end in tears. 

We are going to see this play out for decades gentile reader. Islam as a whole, and in the Near East even more so, is going to have to work out the long, nasty and brutal effects of colonialism. It is going to have to work out its issues with modernity. It is going to have to work out how fundamentally the world has changed. This is not just about Syria. It is about a culture sideswiped by one of the great wrecking balls of history and how it deals with the effects of the hit. The Calif is dead, the Ottomans are no more, wither Islam? 

Loony Tune Muslimas Saying Stupid things

A female Kuwaiti politician called for the legalization of the sex slavery, saying it would protect "decent, devout and virile Kuwaiti men" from adultery. It would keep them from the temptation of being seduced by another woman's beauty. 

http://bit.ly/iP00m5

KUALA LUMPUR: A wife must obey and serve her husband like "a first-class prostitute" to keep him from straying and to prevent greater social ills, according to the Obedient Wives' Club.

The Malaysian branch of the club, launched here yesterday, was formed as an answer to social problems such as infidelity, prostitution, domestic violence and abandoned babies, which its members believed stemmed from a lack of belief in God and the failure of women to keep their husbands content.

Read more: 'Serve husbands like first-class prostitutes' http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/14prosi/Article/#ixzz1OeuZPJD9

The Kicking In Of A Rotten Door Pt 2

Musings on wrecking balls and other forces of history.

What to say about the events in Egypt on the twelfth of February of two thousandth and eleventh year of the Common Era? So many trivial events are labeled “historical” these days that when a true historical event occurs we are at a loss for words. Over sixty years of political process and failure created the events we witnessed over two weeks. History went into overdrive and the world has one less corrupt, evil, tin-pot dictator to kick around.

But this process is not over, not by a long-shot. Egypt is not some peripheral Maghreb state. It is not some oddball nation that last graced the notice of the United States in Ottoman times and only then because it harbored pirates. Egypt matters. Not because of the peace treaty with Israel. No, believe it or else, that is a peripheral issue. The peace treaty is obsession of denizens of the Potomac fever swamps. Egypt matters not only because it is the most populous state in all of the Near East but because it is Egypt.

This is the land of great memory and a glorious history. It the land of the Pharaohs. It it is the land of the Ptolemaic dynasty and Cleopatra. It is the land of Fatimids and their dynasty, It is the land of the Ayyubid dynasty, started by near mythic Saladin. It is the  land were pride of place and pride of history are palpable. To this day it a center of learning, the arts, culture, philosophy, religion and yes, politics. What Egypt does matters.

The collapse of the Mubarak Kleptocracy and the pivotal role the military played in it are critical to our understanding of what happened and what happens next. Small “d” democratic reforms stand or fall by the grace of the bayonets of the Egyptian Army. 

Yet the Army in Egypt is not the end of the discussion. The institution can only hold on to its privileged position by the consent of the Egyptian people. It knew this and acted accordingly when crunch time came. It first acted as a passive buffer between the populace and the regime. Then, when it matter. it acted as an active participant in the revolution.

Of course such events cannot happen without the requisite navel-gazing by the Beltway elites and their sundry mouthpieces in the Moron Media. I have never been so happy not to own a T.V. as I have been for the last two weeks. The oceans of spittle that have wash over most of my fellow citizens has passed me by. I have been blissfully unaware to ravings of Beck, Hannity, Sister Sara Palin, Tweety and the other palavering pundits that have been dumbing down the conversation for fun and profit. One more time gentle reader, what we, the U.S., do or do not do matters very little. Control is an illusion. Our opinion counts for very little when all is said is done. We operate on the margins when we operate at all.

Seriously, we have to get over our selves. The Hegemony of the U.S. over world affairs is way past its sell by date. This has nothing to do with the occupant in the White House. This is huge, impersonal forces of history on the move. No hare-brain conspiracies by dry-drunk Mormon crackpots needed. No need for Manchurian Candidate, Bedwetting, Marxist, Socialist, Fascist, Islamist, Anti-Colonialist, Anti-American, Progressive (did you notice he’s black) bug-a-boos.  These forces are already aligning in Yemen, Iran, and Algeria; who knows what tomorrow or the next week may bring.

This is why all the sound and fury about Obama is really beside the point. Yes, the man got blind-sided by the events in Egypt; many did. Yes, the man could have gotten the messaging a little better, a little more coherent. I still find it hard to fault the man too much. He is merely a reflection of the muddle that passes for thinking in the fever swamps of the Potomac. Obama’s failures reflect the failures of the Conventional Wisdom.  D.C. still has not gotten the message; the rest of the world dose not give a damn what Washington insiders think is the correct process is. D.C.’s obsessions carry no weight with the developing world. D.C.’s obsessions carry no weight with reality. People are on the move. Cultures are on the move. Politics are on the move. Faiths are on the move. Nations are on the move. They are not going to bother with a mother-may-I; they are not going to ask permission from Washington DC. 

One more time with feeling; our options are a lot more circumspect, a lot more limited than we think. The best thing any nation or people can do when the wrecking ball of historical events gathers speed is to get the hell out of the way. Mubarak did not understand this brutal fact of survival and got plastered. 

I wish I could tell you, gentle reader, where this is all headed. Wither the Maghreb? Wither the greater Arab Middle East? I don’t have a clue. I will offer one pointer, one datum to look out for: corruption. The door that gets kicked in next will be the one that is the most rotten. While the rage of the populace gets tons of ink, no one bothers much with a much more important factor : entropy. These despotic regimes have a definite shelf life. Even when they have the benefit of an overarching ideology like the USSR, they eventually fall apart from shear exhaustion and corruption. Many regimes are hard up against this limit. The ideology of Arab Nationalism is, as pointed out before, deader than Marly’s ghost. The authoritarian regimes that were founded on this ideology have no legitimacy worth mentioning; they are held together by shear military force. Sooner or later there will be an epic fail. Sooner or later the entropy of corruption will play havoc with these illegitimate governments. A wiser U.S. policy would recognize this and understand that the “stability” it craves in the Arab world ( and in the larger developing world) is a Chimera. These governments are closed systems, and closed systems eventually fail. 

Such failure is not necessarily a good thing. It may not lead to any recognizable form of democracy. We could see some states devolve in to anarchy, or in to anachronism ,or  in to a combination of both. Still, the best option for the U.S. is to avoid the temptation to impose our will on these nation’s domestic arrangements. We are not nearly as smart as we think we are, and we could make a bad situation infinitely worse with our interventions. In this regard Obama’s natural conservatism has served him well. His no-sudden-moves default prevented him from getting on the wrong side of history with Mubarak. Personally I hope the man sticks to his natural inclination to wait-and-see.

Waiting and seeing is the best option for our interests. Sorry for being redundant but, huge historical forces are at play. The normal rules of regimes, foreign affairs, and politics no longer apply. Many nations in the Maghreb and in the Near East are about to undergo a severe challenge to the status quo. The populous of these nations is about to get very frisky, so much so that the ordinary institutions of repression and control may fail. This has little to do with social networking or Web 2.0. This has much to do with broad social movements that become irresistible forces. Facebook and Twitter are mere tools, they are not the technological end-all and be-all for these movements. Technology is just one more form of kinetic energy that is being added to the wrecking ball that is headed straight at these corrupt and failing regimes. Our best option as the United States is a quiet but firm support for democracy and democratic reform. We need to speak softly and leave our big stick at home.

Such low-key responses don’t sit well with many political observers. It especially does not play well with the professional Obama haters. That usual gang of idiots will use any brickbat handy to knock down the President. It gets tiresome. Obama was neither genius nor horrific with his handling of the Egyptian crisis. He was mediocre. He managed to muddle through. One hopes he ups his game because he will need to be much more coherent when the next flair-up happens. Consistency has to be key, he can not have one response for Iran and a different response to Bahrain. The people in the area will be able to sniff out hypocrisy with great efficiency and with dreadful consequences for U.S. diplomacy. Revolution is in the air; the Revenge of History has just begun.

Are You Serious or Are You Stoned?

A fatwa issued recently about adult breast-feeding to establish "maternal relations" and preclude the possibility of sexual contact has resulted in a week's worth of newspaper headlines in Saudi Arabia. Some have found the debate so bizarre that they're calling for stricter regulations about how and when fatwas should be issued.

Sheikh Al Obeikan, an adviser to the royal court and consultant to the Ministry of Justice, set off a firestorm of controversy recently when he said on TV that women who come into regular contact with men who aren't related to them ought to give them their breast milk so they will be considered relatives.

"The man should take the milk, but not directly from the breast of the woman," Al Obeikan said, according to Gulf News. "He should drink it and then becomes a relative of the family, a fact that allows him to come in contact with the women without breaking Islam's rules about mixing."
...
Under Islamic law, women are encouraged to breast-feed their children until the age of 2. It is not uncommon for sisters, for example, to breast-feed their nephews so they and their daughters will not have to cover their faces in front of them later in life. The custom is called being a "breast milk sibling."

But under Islamic law, breast milk siblings have to be breastfed before the age of 2 in five "fulfilling" sessions. Islam prohibits sexual relations between a man and any woman who breastfed him in infancy. They are then allowed to be alone together when the man is an adult because he is not considered a potential mate.

"The whole issue just shows how clueless men are," blogger Eman Al Nafjan wrote on her website. "All this back and forth between sheiks and not one bothers to ask a woman if it's logical, let alone possible to breastfeed a grown man five fulfilling breast milk meals.

"Moreover, the thought of a huge hairy face at a woman's breast does not evoke motherly or even brotherly feelings. It could go from the grotesque to the erotic but definitely not maternal."

Al Nafjan said many in the country were appalled by the fatwa.

Snip

Some are appalled, I'm just totally weireded out. I think I must repair to my fainting couch dear reader.  When did the world's second largest religion become a triple X fetish video?

This Will End In Tears

An award-winning Egyptian writer has caused an international row after he appeared to propose the construction of a second Ka'bah, the cube-shaped building in Mecca that is the focal point of prayer for a billion Muslims.

Progressive thinker Sayyed al-Qimni suggested in an interview with an Egyptian television listings magazine that a religious shrine on Mount Sinai would provide an affordable alternative destination for poor pilgrims as well as generating an income of more than £3bn for his country.
He also said it could improve relations between the three Abrahamic faiths because Mount Sinai is significant in Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

Qimni is a divisive figure in his home country, attracting opprobrium and sometimes death threats for his views.

His detractors have accused him of blasphemy and apostasy because of his critical approach to Islam and his fondness for secularism.

His previous brush with controversy was last year, when he received the State Award of Merit in Social Sciences from the ministry of culture. It sparked a legal and media campaign to have him stripped of the prize.
But it is his comments about the Ka'bah, said to have been built by Abraham and his son Ishmael, that have inflamed opinion outside Egypt.

In London the Saudi embassy said: "This is impossible. There can only be one Holy Ka'bah. This is a sacred place, sacred to all Muslims." The Saudi writer and journalist Muhammad Diyab said in his Asharq al-Awsat column that Qimni had "fallen into an abyss" and had "officially shifted from the list of fools to the list of madmen".

The Association of British Hujjaj, a national organisation for British pilgrims, also condemned the "atrocious proposal" for turning Mount Sinai into a place of pilgrimage and a tourist attraction.
Qimni sought to defuse the anger by insisting he was talking about a place of worship and spirituality that all three religions could benefit from, rather than a substitute for the Islamic site, and that he had used the word Ka'bah because of its immediate religious connotations.

Snip

Dude, when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging. Story via The Guardian UK

Iraqi woman had 80 women raped to recruit suicide bombers

February 04, 2009 09:15am

A WOMAN suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers has confessed to organising their rapes so she could later convince them that martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame.

Samira Jassam, 51, was arrested by Iraqi police and confessed to recruiting the women and orchestrating dozens of attacks.

In a video confession, she explained how she had mentally prepared the women for martyrdom operations, passed them on to terrorists who provided explosives, and then took the bombers to their targets.

"We arrested Samira Jassim, known as 'Um al-Mumenin', the mother of the believers, who was responsible for recruiting 80 women'', Major General Qassim Atta said.

"She confessed her responsibility for these actions, and she confirmed that 28 attempts had been made in one of the terrorists' strongholds,'' he said.

Samira Jassim was arrested on January 21. She is allegedly linked to the Ansar al-Sunnah insurgent group.

Two of the attacks for which Samira Jassim admitted responsibility in the video confession took place in Diyala province, in central Iraq, which is considered one of the most dangerous areas of the country.

The Associated Press reports US military figures indicate at least 36 female suicide bombers attempted or carried out 32 attacks last year. Women are often allowed through military checkpoints without being searched, making it easier for them to hide explosives under their traditional robes.

Source The Herald Sun Of Australia
H/T Pharyngula

Senior Saudi cleric OK girls to marry

By DONNA ABU-NASR, Associated Press Writer - 28 mins ago

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia’s most senior cleric was quoted Wednesday as saying it is permissible for 10-year-old girls to marry and those who think they’re too young are doing the girls an injustice.

The mufti’s comments showed the conservative clergy’s opposition to a drive by Saudi rights groups, including government ones, to define the age of marriage and put an end to the phenomenon of child marriages.

“It is wrong to say it’s not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger,” Sheik Abdul-Aziz Al Sheikh, the country’s grand mufti, was quoted as saying.

“A female who is 10 or 12 is marriageable and those who think she’s too young are wrong and are being unfair to her,” he said during a Monday lecture, according to the pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper.

Al Sheikh’s comments come at a time when Saudi human rights groups have been pushing the government to put an end to marriages involving the very young and to define a minimum age for marriage. In the past few months, Saudi newspapers have highlighted several cases in which young girls were married off to much older men or very young boys.

Though the mufti’s pronouncements are respected and provide guidance, the government is not legally bound by them.

On Sunday, the government-run Human Rights Commission condemned marriages of minor girls, saying such marriages are an “inhumane violation” and rob children of their rights.

The commission’s statement followed a ruling by a court in Oneiza in central Saudi Arabia last month that dismissed a divorce petition by the mother of an eight-year-old girl whose father married her off to a man in his 50s.

Newspaper reports said the court argued that the mother did not have the right to file such a case on behalf of her daughter and said that the petition should be filed by the girl when she reaches puberty.

Responding to a question about parents who force their underage daughters to marry, the mufti said: “We hear a lot about the marriage of underage girls in the media, and we should know that Islamic law has not brought injustice to women.”

The mufti said a good upbringing will make a girl capable of carrying out her duties as a wife and that those who say women should not marry before the age of 25 are following a “bad path.”

“Our mothers and before them, our grandmothers, married when they were barely 12,” said Al Sheikh, according to Al-Hayat.

More From The No Fun Allowed Folks

Saudi scholar issues TV death fatwa

From Al Jazeera English.

A Saudi scholar has issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of television networks broadcasting "depravation and debauchery".

"It is lawful to kill ... the apostles of depravation ... if their evil cannot be easily removed through simple sanctions," Saleh al-Luhaidan, chief justice of the supreme judicial council, was quoted by the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya news channel as saying.

"The situation is serious ... the degradation of morals is a form of perversion on Earth," al-Luhaidan said.

The 79-year-old scholar, who holds the highest judicial authority in the kingdom, made the comments during a recent radio show in which he was asked by a caller for his opinions on immoral programmes being broadcast on Arab televisions during the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

The shows depict lifestyles and values deemed offensive by many Saudi religious leaders and judges.

Many of the most popular Arab satellite networks are owned by Saudi princes and well-connected Saudi businessmen.

'Subversive shows'

Azzam Tamimi, the director of the Islamic Institute of Political Thought, told Al Jazeera: "You cannot just license the killing of people in this way.

"If I were in his place, I would criticise the people who licensed the channels in the first place and these are the rulers of his own country."

He said: "The problem is that there is a deliberate attempt to impose an imported culture on Arab societies.

"Saudi royalty owns many of these channels, they provide funding for them and I think they are responsible for this campaign."

Earlier this year, sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, the kindgom's grand mufti, issued a fatwa (religious edict) against channels that broadcast Noor, a Turkish-produced soap opera centred on the lives of a husband and wife seeking to reconcile the conflicting pressures of traditional and modern worlds.

The grand mufti, the head of Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority, branded the popular show "subversive" and "anti-Islamic" and said anyone who broadcast it was "an enemy of God and his Prophet".

Al-Luhaidan has sparked controversy in the past by issuing a decree that Saudis can join those fighting against US troops in Iraq.

The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Soft Bigotry of Political Correctness

BBC News Radio Four got a little more than it bargained for when it interviewed Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The leader of the Anglican Church, already embroiled in a huge controversy about the ordination of open Homosexuals as Bishops, for some reason felt the urge to open yet another large number 10 size can of worms.

The good doctor decided to weigh in on the Islamic community and the implementation of Sharia Law in the UK. From the BBC website:

“Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4's World at One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion.

For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.

He says Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty". “

There is more at the BBC website http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7232661.stm including Dr Williams’ statement that enacting Sharia law “would help maintain social cohesion.” No, seriously, it is there in the article.

In a way it is comforting to see that there is still no shortage of muddled thinking in the U.K. even in, or should it be said especially among, the elites. Despite all manner of degrees and studies and learning it is still quite possible for the most erudite and cultured to say something profoundly ignorant. God is in his heaven and all is profoundly wrong with the world.

Peel back what is the subtext being peddled here. Those poor dears, the Muslims, they are having such a terrible time adjusting to our way of doing thing here. We really can’t expect them to act like normal people now can we? No, they are a people apart and we must make allowances for them. We must allow them to indulge in their quant ways. Not for them our regular laws that have been developed over centuries. We can not expect them to understand that our form of government is based secular authority. They can not be expected to understand our norms based on reason, judgment, and tradition. Yes they did decide to leave their Muslim polity, left the rule of the Ummah, and entered a nation governed by secular authority; but that is no matter, they must be allowed to set up there own little Riyadhs, Kandahars, and Istanbuls in the heart of London.

It is odd that the westerners are not being extended the any sort of quid pro quo from the Muslim world. We can not be-bop down the streets of Riyadh with a can of beer in one hand, a ham sandwich in the other, and playboy in our back pocket without facing serious consequences. For some reason we are expected to conform to Muslim norms while Muslims are not expected to conform to our norms. What we have here is the soft bigotry of political correctness.

In a sense it is the same dreary jingoism and chauvinism that fueled the Imperil march of Great Brittan in the 18^th and 19^th century. Back then at least the pasty white empire builders were decent enough to call a spade a spade and a wog a wog. Even now brown people are still seen as somehow as damaged goods. Somehow they just can’t cope, they can’t adapt, and they need special dispensation. No the Muslims must be a people apart. Not for them the idea of equal justice under the law, not for them the idea of equality under the law, not for them the great gift of the enlightenment : both freedom of religion and freedom from religion. Not for them the protections of civil society—they just can’t handle secular society, the poor benighted souls.

Not that the UK is alone in this muddle headed thinking. Germany has been less than fabulous with its "guest workers" from Turkey. There has been next to nothing done about “honor killings” and other bits of nastiness that are part of the Turkish cultural legacy. The German Greens are more than happy to slag the smallest sexist infraction of male Germans, especially if they are leaders in the party, but have done precious little to defend the rights of Turkish women in DDR. Isn’t cultural sensitivity grand?

How about we let the West be the West that is secular? How about we enforce the rule of law and the primacy of civil society that has been the norm in Europe for at least a century? How about we stick with the state being the final arbitrator in matters of marriage and family? The nations of Europe for hundreds of years worked to evict religion from these matters, why are we so eager to let religion back in via the back door. Ever since the French Revolution Europe has struggled to realize the goals of the Enlightenment, to establish a government based on reason and law- not Devine revelation. Exactly why should we now abandon ideas now? Why are we no longer willing to have equal justice under law?

Let’s be clear, by setting up any kind of Sharia law that is separate from civil law we automatically have unequal protection. Separate is inherently unequal. The good doctor should have reviewed Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas before spouting off on the subject.

Let us also be clear on rights and responsibilities. Liberals and leftist are keen on illuminating rights while ignoring responsibilities. By coming to the UK or any other country out of the orbit of the Ummah , by coming to a place where Islam is a minority religion , Muslims pick up the responsibility of adapting to secularism—not vice versa.

Granted the immigrants life is a hard one. One becomes a person apart, the only people who really understand you are other immigrants. One becomes doomed to be neither fish nor fowl. But it is a choice made by ambition, by circumstance, by the individual. One has chosen to cut oneself off from the mother culture and be a stranger in a strange land. For whatever reasons one leaves their native land one knows that they are going to have to cope with fundamental change.

The adopted land owes the immigrant absolutely nothing, not a job, not shelter, not understanding, nothing above and beyond what it offers the rest of its citizens. The immigrant chooses his new land; the new nation does not choose the immigrant. At best a nation may ask for people with specific skills but only as a group. Einstein choose the USA and while the USA was quite happy to receive him it never specifically asked him to come over to the land of the free and home of the brave. The US had many advantages and many private individuals and institutions drawing him to our nation. Einstein had his reasons to get out of Germany as did many Jews in the 1930’s , but it was his decision of where he would finally rest his hat. As it was for this very famous man it is for more obscure types. They choose the countries they go to, it has been a very long time since sub-continental citizens have been shipped off to jolly-old with the rest of the lordly brick-a-brack. These people know or should know what they are getting into.

Ultimately this is about real equality and unity. There can not be one law for Muslims, another for Jews, yet another for Buddhists, quite a different one for Mormons and a totally different law for Wiccans. One nation, one standard, zero opt outs. In Saudi Arabia that standard is informed by Sunni Islam, in Iran that standard is informed by Shia Islam. In England it is informed by Thousands of years of common law, some of those laws predating Christianity. Exactly why is England expected to toss these laws for a bunch of parvenus when it did not change it for the “new” religion of Christianity? England is England and traditions matter there.

Not that tradition doesn’t matter on this side of the pond either. We have these quant ideas about the right of conscience and the separation of church and state. They are written on a scrap of paper known as the Constitution. Thanks to Cheney-Bush the Constitution is not what it used be; all the more reason to resist any more assaults on it.

The Bush minions have been especially busy injecting Dominionist Christianity into the decision making arms of the government. This corruption of the core political values of the USA has been disastrous. The USA needs less accommodation to religion not more. We need to rebuild the rational, secular, civic side of nation; not let even more religious sectarianism and separatism creep into our civil society.

The founders built a church-state wall for a reason: to protect the Government from Religion and to protect Religion from the Government. It always ends in tears when Government and Religion get entwined. In the end both Religion and Government end up deeply sullied and corrupt. In the end Religion and Government loose the respect of the people and the door is opened to radical and disastrous notions.

A World Without Islam?

It is next to impossible to think of a world without Islam. Iran would be Zoroastrian redoubt and North Africa would be a tumult of heretical Christianity. Manicheanism would inform Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Judaism. Without the “threat” of the armies of Islam would Charles Martel and his son ever occurred?

What would the Pacific east look like? Would all of Indonesia be a Hindu polity? Would Buddhism rule over Afghanistan? What would the subcontinent look like without Mogul rule? Would Tibetan Buddhism eventually become the dominate religion in Central Asia or would the Mongols remain pagans? Would the holy cities of Mecca and Medina find god via the Jews in their midst or would the people of Arabia still slumber in polytheism?

What is called Western Civilization owes so much to Islam, especially the glorious flower of 12th Century Islam. What the Irish monks failed to save, the people of Muslim Spain preserved. Hiding in nooks of the great Cathedrals of Chartres and Notre Dame de Paris are Islamic inventions of Architecture.

Even that great European misadventure of the Crusades has roots in Islam. What is Papal dispensation other than a perverted form of Jihad? Before Islam struck Christendom there were no forms of Militant Christianity. Look at the Knights Templar, the Teutonic Knights, the Knights of St John, etc., etc., etc. Lest we forget the Orders founded in Spain that founded the Reconquista in Spain and Portugal. Not to get too Hegelian here but the push of Islam, the push of the Prophet armed, lead to the shove of the Christian Military Orders. Before Islam Spain was a collection of heretical Visogothic small states. After the Reconquista Spain was more Catholic than the Pope.

It is really hard to imagine Charlemagne without the clear and present danger of Muslim Spain. Would the Pope be so desirous of the creation of a New Rome if it wasn’t for the threat of Damascus? And it was Charlemagne that set up the kingdoms that eventually became the great European states of France, Germany and Italy.

We forget that Islam and Christendom not only conflicted they also cross pollinated. It was the Ottomans who pushed the Europeans out of the warm confines of the Mediterranean and into the harsh Atlantic. Think about it, the crazed idea of Columbus was to bypass the Ottoman control of the spice and silk trade a go directly to the source. I say crazed because his notion of the world was literally too small. Lucky for him there was a whole continent where the Greeks thought there was open ocean. Australia is an English speaking, European culture because of Ottoman domination in the 15th century.

Don’t forget the more prosaic gifts of Islam, where would we be without the Islamic transmission of paper to the Western world? Islam has acted as a transmission belt between Asia and Christendom long before Alan Watts first drew breath.

These kind of what-ifs really drive historians to drink or at least hair pulling for tea-totalers. Europe might still be wallowing in mystical ignorance if not for Islam. A weird, debased, possibly gnostic Christianity would occupy most of the now Muslim maghreb. This could have penetrated father south creating and even more bizarre and heretical mish mash of African Polytheism and Gnostic / Manichean Christology. Muslims forget how inventive Christians can be in their ideology.

Islamic knowledge and logic curbed Christian enthusiasm for Platonic excess. Islam re-introduced Aristotle and other hard-headed Greeks to Christendom. Islam re-introduced the scientific method to Europe. It is impossible to say that Europe could have rediscovered these things without Islam providing a scholarly nudge in the right direction. The glory that was and is the Alhambra has echoes in so much of what is called the Gothic in Europe. Even the Troubadours of France and the great art of courtly romance they created may have its roots in Al-Andalus. With out Islam we might be bereft of Arthur and his Knights. Remember much of the story of Arthur rest in the stories and songs of the Troubadours. Odd to think of something seen as so typically British may actually have part of its roots in the harems of Al-Andalus. But that is what happens when you really try to think of a world without Islam, it is like pulling a thread from a sweater, if your not careful you might end up with a rather small wool potholder.