Disturbing Evangelical Trends in Politics of America

An emerging Christian movement that seeks to take dominion over politics, business and culture in preparation for the end times and the return of Jesus is establishing a presence in American politics. The leaders are considered apostles and prophets, gifted by God for this role.

The International Apostolic and Prophetic Movement was named the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR, by its leading architect, C. Peter Wagner. Rachel Tabachnick has been researching and writing about this movement. She says although the movement is larger than the network of apostles organized by Wagner, and not all those connected with the movement describe themselves as part of Wagner's NAR, the apostles and prophets of the movement have an identifiable ideology that separates them from other Evangelicals.

Two ministries in the movement, The Call, led by Lou Engle, and the International House of Prayer, led by Mike Bickle, helped organize Rick Perry's recent prayer rally, where apostles and prophets from around the nation spoke or appeared on stage.

The Kenyan pastor who anointed Sarah Palin at the Wasilla Assembly of God Church in 2005 while praying for Jesus to protect her from the spirit of witchcraft is also part of this movement.

For details, please, read the NPR's transcript of the interview conducted in the Fresh Air by Terry Gross with Rachel Tabachnick on August 24.

Essence of Ramadan

Muslims throughout the world are now observing Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting in accordance with the dictates of the Qur’an – the Muslim Holy Scripture, in which they are commanded by Allah:
O ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, that ye may (learn) self-restraint (Taqwa). (2:183)

The word "Ramadan" comes from the Arabic root word for "parched thirst" and "sun-baked ground." Through fasting, a Muslim experiences hunger and thirst, and sympathizes with those in the world who have little to eat and drink every day. It teaches him/her to be charitable. Through increased charity, Muslims develop feelings of generosity and good-will toward others.

As is clear from the above Qur’anic verse, the essence of fasting is learning Taqwa, which is more than self-restraint (translated above). It is God-consciousness which endows the person (the Muttaqi) to be aware of the presence of Allah in every moment of his/her life.

As to the characteristics of a Muttaqi, the Qur’an says:
It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces towards east or west; but it is righteousness - to believe in God and the Last Day, and the Angels, and the Book, and the Messengers; to spend of your substance, out of love for Him, for your kin, for orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask, and for the ransom of slaves; to be steadfast in prayer, and practice regular charity; to fulfill the contracts which ye have made; and to be firm and patient, in pain (or suffering) and adversity, and throughout all periods of panic. Such are the people of truth, the muttaqoon. (2:177)
In his famous book Kimiya-e Sa’dat, Imam al-Ghazzali (r) tells the story of a certain Shaykh [Junayd al-Baghdadi (r)] who favored one of his disciples over others because of the latter’s God-consciousness. Other disciples obviously were jealous about the Shaykh’s favoritism. One day to prove the point, the Shaykh gave each disciple a fowl to kill it in a place where no one could see him. All the disciples returned after killing their fowls, except the favored disciple. The Shaykh inquired why he had returned with the live fowl. The disciple replied, “I could not find a place where Allah would not see me.” His God-consciousness (Taqwa) did not allow him to be heedless of Allah’s presence. The Shaykh then told his other disciples: “Now you know this youth’s real rank; he has attained to the constant remembrance of Allah.”

Fasting increases devotion, and brings a Muslim closer to the Creator. It creates the recognition that everything we have in this life is a blessing from Him. It teaches self-control or -restraint, and thereby, good manners, good speech, and good habits.
Fasting during Ramadan is one of the major pillars of Islam, and this is also noted in the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (S) [blessings of Allah and peace be upon him] who said: “Islam is based on (the following) five (principles): (1) To testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and Muhammad is Allah's Apostle; (2) to establish the prayers; (3) to pay Zakat (i.e. obligatory charity); (4) to perform Hajj (i.e. Pilgrimage to Makkah); (5) to observe fast during the month of Ramadan.” [Bukhari: (narrated by) Abdullah Ibn 'Umar]
While fasting is an obligation for all able-bodied persons who are not traveling or sick, it is also clear from some other verses of the Qur’an and numerous sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (S) that fasting is not restricted to the month of Ramadan, and can be observed voluntarily at other times. The Prophet (S) used to fast on Mondays and Thursdays almost on a regular basis. Fasting a certain number of days (or offering charity or sacrifice) can be an expiation for missing out (or unintentionally breaking) some religious obligations of either Hajj or ‘Umra (Qur’an 2:196, 5:96), and for forgetting or breaking one’s oaths or promises (Qur’an 5:89).

Great merits and rewards – both physical and spiritual – can be drawn from fasting. As noted by Dr. Shahid Athar, M.D., “The physiological effect of fasting includes lowering of blood sugar, lowering of cholesterol and lowering of the systolic blood pressure. In fact, Ramadan fasting would be an ideal recommendation for the treatment of mild to moderate, stable, non-insulin diabetes, obesity, and essential hypertension.”

As stated in the Qur’an, Allah promises forgiveness and vast reward for a fasting person:

Lo! Muslim men and women (who submit to Allah), and men who believe and women who believe, and men who obey and women who obey, and men who speak the truth and women who speak the truth, and men who persevere (in righteousness) and women who persevere, and men who are humble and women who are humble, and men who give alms and women who give alms, and men who fast and women who fast, and men who guard their modesty and women who guard (their modesty), and men who remember Allah much and women who remember - Allah hath prepared for them forgiveness and a vast reward. (33:35)

In a well-known hadith, Muhammad (S) said, “Allah, the Almighty and Master of Honor, says: ‘All actions of a person are for himself, except the case of his fasting which is exclusively for Me and I shall pay (recompense) for him for the same.’ The fast is a shield (against vice and the fire of Hell). Therefore when anyone of you is fasting he should abstain from loose talk and avoid verbosity and noisy exchange of words.” [Bukhari and Muslim: Abu Hurayrah]

And when one combines such meritorious deeds like prayer, fasting and charity (three of the five pillars of Islam) during the month of Ramadan, which is described as a month of blessing when the Qur’an was revealed, Allah promises immense rewards. Muhammad (S), Allah's Apostle said: "Whoever establishes prayers during the nights of Ramadan faithfully out of sincere faith and hoping to attain Allah's rewards (not for showing off), all his past sins will be forgiven." [Bukhari: Abu Hurayrah]

To a Muslim, it is this state of God-consciousness, attainable through fasting -- for surely, the evils of the nafs (ego, evil-self, etc.) cannot be tamed without this, which is learned in the blessed month of Ramadan. It is at this stage that a person truly becomes Allah’s servant (‘abd) for whom He says in the Qur’an:

When My servants ask thee (Muhammad) concerning Me, I am indeed close (to them): I listen to the prayer of every suppliant when he calleth on Me: Let them also, with a will, Listen to My call, and believe in Me: That they may walk in the right way. (2: 186)

Alas, today’s Muslims are a far cry from those who follow the dictates of the Qur’an. They may like to listen to the advice of Ibrahim ibn Adham (r), a great saint of Islam, when he was asked, "Allahu ta'ala declares: 'O My human creatures! Ask Me! I will accept, I will give!’ Nonetheless, we ask but He does not give?"

Ibrahim (r) said: "You entreat Allahu ta'ala, but you do not obey Him. You know His Prophet (S), but you do not follow him. You read the Qur'an al-Karim, but you do not follow the way it prescribes. You utilize Allah ta'ala's blessings, but you do not thank Him. You know that Paradise is for those who worship, but you do not make preparations for it. You know that He has created Hell for the disobedient, but you do not fear it. You see what happened to your fathers and grandfathers, but you do not take a warning. You do not see your own defects, and you search for defects in others. Such people must be thankful, since it does not rain stones on them, since they do not sink into the earth, and since it does not rain fire from the sky! What else could they want? Would not this suffice as a recompense for their prayers?" [Ithbat an-Nubuwwat]

On another occasion, somebody asked the Ibrahim ibn Adham (r) for advice. He said: “If you accept six things, nothing you do will harm you. These six things are:
1) When you intend to commit a sin, do not eat the food He gives. Does it befit you to eat His food and to disobey Him?
2) When you want to rebel against Him, go out of His Domain. Does it befit you to be in His Domain and to be in rebellion against Him?
3) When you want to disobey Him, do not sin where He sees you. Sin where He does not see you! It is simply unbecoming to be in His Domain, to eat His food and then to sin where He sees you!
4) When the Angel of Death comes to take away your soul, ask him to wait till you repent. You cannot turn that angel back! Repent before he comes, while you have the chance at this very hour, for the Angel of Death comes unexpectedly!
5) When the two angels Munkar and Nakir come to question you in the grave, turn them back. Do not let them test you!”
“It is impossible,” said the person who asked for his advice.
Ibrahim (r) said, "Then prepare your answers now!"
6) On the Day of Resurrection, when Allah ta'ala declares: "Sinners, go to Hell!" say that you will not!
The person said, "Nobody will listen to me," and then repented; he did not disavow his sense of penitence up until death. There is a Divine effect in the words of a saint. [Islamic Wisdom]

May this Ramadan lay the foundation stone to the path of Taqwa!

Bangladesh’s Political Insanity?

In recent days, the Economist of the U.K. seems to have taken more than a casual interest about the sad state of politics inside Bangladesh, which has been a nasty partisan one with an illiberal democracy for the last two decades. While such an interest may be a boon to stir a healthy debate about the health of a failing democracy, I was not too happy with the partisan tone of the analyst who wrote on August 13 under the pseudonym Banyan. It is absurd to take such pieces seriously when we even don't know who has written the piece.

The politics in Bangladesh has been abused by those in power with a winner-takes-all attitude. This trend was neither started by the ruling Awami League when in 2008 it swept to power in a landslide, nor will it probably end with its fall. The ruling party never learns how to compromise and build consensus across the aisle on the parliament floor. It carries out partisan policies and takes draconian measures, all aimed at marginalizing its opposition, hoping that such would ensure its victory in the next election, only to find that they are rejected by its electorate. This is the most important lesson which the leaders of Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), often accused of entertaining dynastic ideas, have foolishly tried to be oblivious of. There is a name for such an attitude. I call it insanity!

True to Gopal Krishna Gokhale’s remark more than half a century ago that “What Bengal (comprising of today’s Bangladesh and the state of West Bengal in India) thinks today, India thinks tomorrow,” the Bangladeshi people are probably the most politically conscious of all the people living in South Asia. They have never made a mistake when they went to the polls to disrobe a political party while replacing it by another. They were not wrong when they voted for the Jukto Front in 1954 and the Awami League in 1970 as part of what was once East Pakistan. Minus the military period of 1975-91, nor were they wrong in any election held ever since December 16 of 1971, when Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation. They were not wrong when in 1946 they overwhelmingly voted for Pakistan in what was then British India. They were not wrong either in December of 2008 when they voted for the coalition led by Mrs Hasina Wazed of the Awami League.

Unfortunately, this piece of essential history, that has defined much of the Bangladeshi character, its sense of intellectual superiority and political correctness, is often forgotten by the new leaders that came to power since 1975.

If today’s leaders of major political parties had respected their electorate and learned that bitter lesson that Bangladeshi people don't like the aspiring Pharaohs, Nawabs and princes, the arrogant snobs and the extremist zealots, the thugs and robbers that spoil and steal their wealth, we would have been spared of this insanity and it could have been a big plus for the failing health of democracy in Bangladesh. If they had learned that ‘the politics of Bengal is in reality the economics of Bengal’, they probably would have cared more for improving the economy rather than coming up with chauvinistic political agendas and narratives that have brought nothing good but harmed the economy of the country through mindless strikes and counter-strikes.

And probably, there has never been a better time in the last two decades to changing this paradigm than after the election of December 2008, dubbed my most outside experts as the fairest poll in the country’s four-decade history. There was that wave of national optimism that the newly sworn Prime Minister would use her party’s popularity to strengthen democratic institutions and pursue national reconciliation, putting an end to a vicious cycle of nasty politics between the Awami League and its major rival, the BNP. But that hope seems to be scuttled by allegations that she had used the huge mandate for partisan advantage. Her opponents say that she has been more interested in sanctifying her late father’s (Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman -- who was the founder of the country) image and solidifying her party’s position than real changes that are necessary to either change Bangladesh from an illiberal democracy to a liberal democracy or improve her economy from its 7 percent GDP growth rate to a healthier double digit one.

There is no denying that power is abused in every illiberal democracy, let alone autocratic, anti-people regimes of our planet. It is this abuse at the top which leads to unfathomable corruption and crime spreading like a virus in every public sector. And, in this regard, Bangladesh has plenty of examples with filthy rich politicians, their beneficiaries and benefactors. She has her share of ‘untouchable’ ‘princes’, a few ‘disposable’ godfathers, and many sycophants. Thus, when the erstwhile military-controlled Caretaker Government came into power in 2007, putting some of these thugs behind the prison cells, people started celebrating and dreaming once again (much like the independence day celebration of 1971) that their days of sad past living under the thugs and criminals were over. It only took few months to have the rude awakening that ‘whoever goes to Lanka becomes a Ravana.’ The caretaker government was no saint!

Bangladesh’s history is, therefore, a sad tragicomedy played by political actors who come and go through the swing door of politics, never to learn from its bloody past that has witnessed so many assassinations. As my sagacious father would say it would require seven layers of soil to be exchanged before anything good to come out of this unfortunate land! A sad commentary, and yet, probably a correct one, for an unfortunate people!

Politics and, more correctly, the political leaders have betrayed the Bangladeshi people too long by choking their legitimate aspirations to live in a crimeless and corruption-less society. They forget about accountability for their misdeeds, which is a corner stone of democracy. Thus, when swept out of power, they cry foul with new government inquiries and ensuing legal actions, which may put them behind the prison walls. When in power, they seem to fancy that this day of hardship would never visit them. What a selective amnesia!

No one should ever think that they are above the law. I have no sympathy for criminals and corrupt guys. The government owes its people the simple task of ensuring checks and balances by prosecuting them in a free trial. The process ought to be fair and transparent and cannot be seen partisan-like where the ruling party’s thugs dodge the long arms of the law and justice while their counterparts in the opposition are prosecuted. The opposition leaders simply cannot cry foul when their kith and kin and buddies are charged for money-laundering and other crimes.

The Economist writer Banyan’s claims about the reasons behind the troubles with Dr. Yunus are too childish to be taken seriously. Dr. Yunus, in spite of all the great things he has been doing globally, is, however, not above criticism. He has been accused of making some mistakes as to how he ran the Grameen Bank. His poverty-alleviation micro-finance program has had many detractors, including economists like Professor Anu Muhammad, who had tried to paint him as a viper that has been “sucking blood from the poor borrowers.” In spite of his quite visible Mandela-like humility, he has been accused of having a big ego that has come to conflict with others vying for the same media spotlight. But to claim that the current troubles of Dr. Yunus owe solely to popularity contest with Sk. Hasina and her slain father is simply too ludicrous!

Sk. Mujib was a towering figure in the politics of Bangladesh, and as shown in the 2004 poll (when BNP was in power), conducted on the worldwide listeners of BBC's Bengali radio service, was voted the "Greatest Bengali of All Time" beating Rabindranath Tagore, another Nobel laureate, and others. It is doubtful that Dr Yunus or anyone in our time would be able to eclipse that image of the Bangabandhu.

Banyan is seemingly against the current War Tribunal in Bangladesh and finds witch-hunting in government's efforts to try the alleged criminals. He forgets that the ruling party had a mandate to close this sad chapter of Bangladesh by trying those accused of committing one of the worst crimes of our time, which has killed some 3 hundred thousand Bangladeshis. (Note: while no serious effort has been taken inside Bangladesh to count the number of those killed during the War of Liberation, some recent research findings do suggest that the actual figure was well below 3 million - the commonly accepted figure in Bangladesh.) During that sad chapter the roles of some politicians now belonging to the opposition was anything but humanly. They were monsters, torturing and killing their fellow Bangladeshis like rats and mosquitoes. One of the accused in the trial personally led a torture cell in his father's residence. I personally know of a few victims, who were students then that were tortured by him mercilessly. He himself killed an elderly Bangladeshi in an execution style murder in 1971.

One would have thought that there was no place for such killers in Bangladeshi politics, especially in a party that was formed by a freedom fighter. Sadly, his criminal prowess, instead of making him a pariah, a persona non grata, simply endeared him to the BNP leadership. He was made a ranking member of the party and bestowed a state ministerial rank. And, this, in spite of his vulgar and trashy talks, some lobbed against his own boss! On a personal note, he abused his power to grab our properties in Khulshi, Chittagong. Land-grabbing and murder of innocent human beings are no small matter. One cannot but wonder what message Mrs Zia was delivering to our people when she allowed such murderers to join her party and become ministers!

Accusations have been made in the Economist that the War Tribunal proceedings in Bangladesh are not fair. I am not aware of any war tribunal that has not been accused of being imperfect. Even the Nuremburg Trial has not been spared of such accusations and has been called 'politically motivated' since it was carried out by the opponents of the Nazis. As to the shoddy trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1962 in Israel, the least said the better. And yet, in spite of such accusations, no one would dispute that each of these trials was able to do justice.

I don't see why today Bangladesh Government would fail to carry out its national obligation by trying the alleged war criminals fairly. As I wrote last year, such trials should never be abused for witch-hunting the opposition, and I am assured that the Commission’s office is not abused. The defenders would have all means to defend themselves against the charges. As to the treatment of the accused, I am also told that they are treated humanly, and much better treated than what the USA and the UK governments had done with their shoddy trials of suspected terrorists in the aftermath of 9/11. Let's face it, compared to how those suspects like KSM and others in Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan are treated, the suspected war criminals in Bangladesh are getting a five-star celebrity treatment!

What Banyan forgets is that our world needs more, and not less, of war tribunals so that no one, not even Bush and Blair, Rumsfeld and Cheney, can dodge their accountability for crimes against humanity. [It is good to hear the recent courageous verdict by Judge Hamilton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit who refused to grant former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and others immunity from lawsuits which “would amount to an extraordinary abdication of our (U.S.) government’s checks and balances that preserve Americans’ liberty.” The case is important because it makes clear — for the first time — that government officials can be held accountable for the intentional mistreatment of American citizens, even if that conduct happens in a war zone. (Sadly, there remains no accountability for the abuse, and torture, of foreigners by American jailers and interrogators, which Mr. Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush personally sanctioned.)]

Banyan tries to make fun of the use of 'sir' for the current Prime Minister. Is Banyan aware of the fact that many successful female CEO's don't like the term 'madam' for them, and insist that they be addressed as 'sir'? Banyon may like to check out with Pepsi Co.'s CEO - Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi.

Banyan's article has distorted some facts. No one has been prosecuted for criticizing the amended constitution. Opposition leaders have simply been warned as they threatened to throw away the constitution and thus implicitly encourage unconstitutional means to take over power. Violence is not the way to solve anything, and surely not a constitutional problem. There is a place for such a debate. It is the Parliament. That is where the BNP and other opposition party members ought to debate.

As noted above, the article in the Economist does little good to steer a healthy debate about politics in Bangladesh and for curbing its nasty partisan politics.

Democracy is worthless without a viable opposition. The majority rule need not be a winner-takes-all process which marginalizes opposition. The leaders in Bangladeshi politics ought to show more maturity and compromise. The two decades that they have ruled Bangladesh alternately as prime ministers should have been sufficient to move forward and grow up. A healthy, respectable dialogue between the political leaders with a firm commitment towards good governance, checks and balances, accountability and respect for the rule of law can be the starting point, if they truly care about building a viable, thriving, healthy democracy in Bangladesh. They can either embrace the lessons of history or choose to end in its dustbin. The choice is surely theirs to get out of political insanity.

Terrorism in Norway – How to avoid it in the future?

If Australia is the ‘land down under,’ then surely Norway is the ‘land up above’ with the sun never completely descending beneath the horizon in areas north of the Arctic Circle during the summer months of May-July (and hence the more common name ‘Land of the Midnight Sun’).

Norway has a history of active pacifism that while being anti-war has never meant being apolitical. During the World Wars (WW) I and II, the country maintained a neutral stance. And yet, during the WW I it suffered heavy losses to its shipping, and was occupied for five years by the Third Reich during the WW II. In 1949, partly due to its failure to maintain its traditional policy of neutrality in the war, Norway became a founding member of the NATO and the UN.

It is this activism in international affairs, which catapulted Norway to take a leading role in hosting the Oslo Accords (1993) towards resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Accords affirmed a Palestinian right of self-government within the Occupied Territories through the creation of a Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority. Palestinian rule was to last for a five-year interim period during which “permanent status negotiations” would commence - no later than May 1996 - in order to reach a final agreement based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, and 338, an integral part of the whole peace process. As we all know by now, Israel, through a series of terrorist and criminal activities (namely, the massacre of praying Palestinians in Masjid Ibrahimi in Hebron by a Zionist terrorist Baruch Goldstein, criminal blockades and the illegal settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories), sabotaged the true intent and purpose of the Accords. It was this implosion of hatred of the ‘other’ people which ultimately led to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, a signatory to the peace Accords, by another Zionist terrorist.

In recent months, while the Obama Administration of the USA has been trying to blackmail the Palestinian people, threatening to Veto their cause in the UN, Norway and its progressive leadership have been reclaiming its global leadership by endorsing their “perfectly legitimate” aspirations to live as a free nation. “We will consider very carefully the proposed text that’s to be put forward by the Palestinians in the coming weeks,” said Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas beside him at a press conference. Stoere however left little doubt about his inclination. “I don’t think that any Palestinians or anybody around the world are in doubt that Norway supports Palestinians’ right to statehood,” he said. “That has to be accompanied by a process of negotiation, which at the moment is stalling.”

He and Abbas signed a document upgrading the Palestinian Authority’s representative in Norway to ambassadorial rank, as several other European nations have done.
It is probably this aspiring moral leadership role in the global arena, which triggered the latest carnage what was to become Norway’s worst calamity in the post WW II era. On Friday July 22, Anders Behring Breivik, a 32-year old son of a Norwegian diplomat, planted a car bomb at a government building in Oslo, which killed eight, before driving to the island of Utoya, northwest of the capital, to shoot another 69 people dead and injure countless more at a Labour Party youth camp. The victims were all Norwegians including children of the immigrants. Breivik was later arrested by the Norwegian police, and confessed to the mass slaughter.
Published reports, including Breivik’s own Internet postings, show that he was a fundamentalist Christian-Zionist zealot who had closely followed the acrimonious American debate over Islam, and was poisoned by the hateful blogs and writings of pro-Israeli, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim provocateurs in America, Europe and India. In his 1500-page manifesto he wrote that he acquired some 8,000 e-mail addresses of “cultural conservatives” not just across Europe but North America, Australia, South Africa, Armenia, Israel, and India – ensuring scrutiny of anti-Muslim groups far beyond Europe.

Breivik’s primary goal was to remove Muslims from Europe. But his manifesto calls for a military cooperation with Jewish groups in Israel, Buddhists in China, and Hindu nationalist groups in India to contain Islam. He referenced India dozens of times. He lists the websites of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), the NVO (National Volunteers’ Organisation), the ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad) and the VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) as resources for further information about his bigotry. He included a five-page paper written by a man named Shrinandan Vyas -- a Hindutvadi extremist provocateur dedicated to distorting history and seeding anti-Muslim hatred (and, thus, providing the intellectual basis for the BJP’s politics of hatred and bigotry), who had falsely accused Muslims of committing genocide in the Hindu Kush. [As I have shown some years ago, the name Hindu Kush predates the emergence of Muslims into the territory.] He applauds Hindu groups who “do not tolerate the current injustice and often riot and attack Muslims when things get out of control.” “It is essential that the European and Indian resistance movements learn from each other and cooperate as much as possible. Our goals are more or less identical,” he wrote.

Breivik frequently posted his comments in several Norwegian internet sites, including the www.document.no, which is run by Hans Rustad, an extremist pro-Zionist Jew who warns against ‘Islamisation’ of Europe by Muslims. [As noted elsewhere by Gilad Atzmon, Islamophobes like Hans Rustad and Harry Place of the UK won’t criticize the Jewish Lobbies, the Lord Levy’s or the Russian Oligarchs’ disastrous impact on ‘Western culture’ or on ‘democratic values’ any time soon.] Breivik has said that the Dutch Freedom Party of Geert Wilders, the third-largest in the Netherlands and an informal member of the ruling coalition, is the only “true” conservative party in Europe. He also wrote approvingly of Stop Islamization of Europe and Pamela Geller, leader of its sister organization in the USA, who has been a leading figure in efforts to block the so-called Ground Zero mosque.

It is also obvious that Breivik did not operate in the vacuum and had a support group. His manifesto says he is among 12 “knights” fighting within a dozen regions in Europe and the US, but not India. His manifesto, which denounced Norwegian politicians as failing to defend the country from Islamic influence, quoted Robert Spencer, who operates the Jihad Watch website, 64 times, and cited other Western writers like Mark Steyn who shared his view that Muslim immigrants pose a grave danger to Western culture.

Breivik frequently cited another blog, Atlas Shrugs, and recommended the Gates of Vienna among websites. Pamela Geller runs Atlas Shrugs. The Gates of Vienna is a blog that owes its name to the siege of Vienna in 1683 by Muslims who, the blog says in its head note, ‘seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe.’ This was echoed in the title Breivik chose for his manifesto: ‘2083: A European Declaration of Independence.’ He chose that year, the 400th anniversary of the siege, as the target for the triumph of Christian forces in the European civil war he called for to drive out Islamic influence.

How real is that ‘threat’ from Muslims in Europe, especially in Breivik’s native country? The Muslim population in Europe is approximately 4 percent, and may not rise above 6 percent by the next decade and level out thereafter. According to EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report, of the 498 terrorist incidents in 2006, only 1 was accused of Muslims. The data for subsequent years (2007-2010) are 4, 0, 1 and 3 out of 583, 515, 294, and 249, respectively. That is, a whopping 99.6% of terrorist attacks in Europe were by non-Muslim groups.

Norway has a population of 4.92 million of which nearly 4.04 million (82 %) are ethnic Norwegians, a figure that has steadily decreased since the late 20th century. [Currently there are more than 4 million Norwegian Americans living inside the USA.] Of the remaining 18 % population, 600,922 (12.2%) are either immigrants or Norwegians born to immigrant parents, and 282,082 (5.7%) have at least one ethnic Norwegian parent (including foreign born). Of this non-Norwegian immigrant community 48% is from other European countries (namely, Poland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Russia and Lithuania). The Asians (including Pakistanis, Vietnamese, Iraqis, and Turks), Africans, and others (people from the Americas and Oceania) comprise only 4.26%, 1.5% and 0.62%, respectively, of the total population. The Muslim population is estimated to be 100,000, or roughly 2% of the total population, or 11% of the non-Norwegian community living in Norway. It is simply absurd to believe that such a meager number, mostly engaged in low-paying menial jobs in Norway, would destroy the Norwegian culture in what has been wrongly dubbed in 2009 as ‘stealth Islamization’ by Siv Jensen, the leader of the Progressive Party.

To understand Breivik’s terrorism, we must, thus, look into the selection of his targets. Much like the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by an anti-government militant, Breivik targeted government buildings in Oslo. He also targeted a youth camp that had held “BOIKOTT ISRAEL” sign. Why? It is not difficult to connect the dots here. To understand his ideology of hatred that enticed him to terrorism, we have to look into his manifesto that provides ample of clues with citations from anti-Muslim bloggers.

Automatic weapons and potent bombs allow the deranged and begrudged to slaughter scores of innocents in mere seconds. There are several examples of such mayhems at the University of Texas in 1966 (14 killed), Columbine High School in 1999 (13 killed), Virginia Tech in 2007 (32 killed), and Bath School disaster of 1927 in which an angry school board member blew up 38 children and 6 adults in Michigan. We also forget that most threats and violence tend to emerge from within a society and not from outside it. M.K. Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, King Faysal, Anwar el-Sadat, Indira Gandhi and Yitzhak Rabin were all assassinated by their fellow countrymen, and not by outsiders.

In the past two decades, much attention has been paid to extremist groups within the world Muslim community, while the potential terrorism from local rightwing extremist groups was ignored. Consequently, just about every ‘expert’ -- conservative chatterer with a blog or a Twitter account rushed to blame ‘Islamic jihadists’ for the bombing and gun massacre in Norway only to be proven wrong later. Just as in Norway, rightwing extremism could easily happen anywhere in our world. The Hutaree, an extremist Christian militia in Michigan accused last year of plotting to kill police officers and planting bombs at their funerals, had an arsenal of weapons larger than all the Muslim plotters charged in the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks combined.

A Norwegian citizen with Norwegian parents slaughtered some 77 of his countrymen (which included teenagers) whom he considered in his twisted logic as traitors for supporting multiculturalism (and therefore Islamisation). Its government must now answer: why it didn’t pay more attention to the threat of domestic terrorism, especially given the fact that, according to Breivik’s 1,500-page manifesto, he spent a decade planning his attacks. And why did it take police so long to respond to the shootings at the summer camp?

A more important issue is the growing intolerance across Europe for Muslims and other immigrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Inflammatory political rhetoric is increasingly tolerated not just in Holland, Denmark and France, but across all of Europe and America. Even Asiatic countries like India, Israel, Burma, Thailand and the Philippines are not free from such hateful messages. Look at the sheer number of anti-Muslim books, movies, TV dramas and websites that emerged in the post-9/11 era! And anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic parties are getting stronger notably in northern European countries that have long had liberal immigration policies.

While individuals are responsible for their actions, there is no denying about the harmful influence of hateful provocateurs which mold their beliefs and justify their criminal actions. For years, many morally bankrupt and utterly corrupt politicians have had nothing better to offer their constituents other than distributing anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant pills. Hatred sells, as it did in Hitler’s Germany. As there were once Julius Streicher and Der Stürmer in Germany (1923-45), so are there now hate-mongers and psychopaths like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly of the radio and TV journalism in the USA, let alone thousands of pen-pushing anti-Muslim bigots like Mark Steyn and Ann Coulter who sell their poison pills to divide our world into hateful camps. Look at the shameful statements made by mainstream Republican politicians with respect to the mosque controversy in Lower Manhattan. Outside the Mayor Bloomberg of New York City hardly any politician had the moral bites to decry such bigotry. This xenophobia is even packaged, promoted and propagated by Rupert Murdoch’s media empire and other anti-Muslim right-wing tabloids.

There are think-tanks, dedicated to promoting hatred and bigotry against Muslims. Nor should one forget about the impact of Jerusalem Summit in packaging hatred to the rest of the world.

In the 1980s, Jean-Marie le Pen of the French National Front, at the time a marginal politician, was one of the first to vituperate against the risk of Islamicization. Today, Islam as ‘the internal and external enemy’ is a staple of European political discourse. Anti-Muslim sentiment has now passed the dinner-table test to become socially acceptable. What message is the public getting out of such unambiguous displays of intolerance? In Europe, even mainstream politicians have sown doubts about the ability or willingness of Europe to absorb newcomers. At a security conference in Munich Feb. 5, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain closed ranks with French and German leaders saying the ‘doctrine of multiculturalism’ has failed in a Britain that encourages ‘different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream.’ Multiculturalism ‘has failed, utterly failed, Mrs. Merkel said last October amid a national debate sparked by a racially loaded bestseller written by German bank official Thilo Sarrazin that criticized Arabs. Last summer French leader Nicolas Sarkozy said multiculturalism was dead as the French cracked down on immigrants and Gypsies.

I wonder if these politicians understand the difference between assimilation and integration or multiculturalism! What they truly want is not integration but blind, robotic assimilation, bereft of discernible cultural values that define one’s humanity and diversity. So to an intellectual midget like Sarkozy, it is the abandonment of the burqa and niqab that defines integration into the French society, and not the much-needed reforms that are essential for integrating Muslims.
There are many third generation Turks and Algerians living in Germany and France, respectively, who are still not integrated into those societies, treated as being outsiders. Unless one’s parents are ethnic French or German, the roads to employment and upward social mobility are often nil for these grandchildren of immigrants from Asia and Africa. Consequently, they are forced to live in the ghettos or poor neighborhoods where public sector is dysfunctional. They routinely face bitter discrimination and witness monumental hypocrisy with almost everything. Unfortunately, when rioting exploded in France’s heavily-immigrant ghettos, many conservative pundits and politicians refused to see the obvious and dismissed claims that the violence had something to do with poverty, unemployment, and exclusion. No, what mattered is that the rioters were Muslims. And then blame it on failure of multiculturalism!

If these western governments had invested in human capital, creation of jobs and ensured equal opportunities, there won’t have been any problem integrating pale-, brown- and dark-skinned immigrants and their children and grandchildren, irrespective of whether or not they are Muslims.

Hatemongering provocateurs, who are no better than terrorists, have long been selling their poison pills of Eurabia - how Muslims soon will take over Europe, if they are not checked. The neocon ideologue Daniel Pipes discovered Jihad in the 2005 riots of France! Similarly, Mark Steyn wrote, “As France this past fortnight reminds us, the changes in Europe are happening far faster than most people thought.” In 2006, Steyn expanded his delusional paranoia into the book America Alone. As you can guess, it was a huge hit, a New York Times bestseller, amongst many delusional readers. Not surprisingly, the dim-witted former president George W. Bush is a fan. In Republican and Tea Party circles, Steyn’s vision of an enfeebled, infertile Europe overrun by fecund, violent Muslims is almost a truism. But to his dismay, no such ‘Eurabian civil war’ has been started by ‘wide-eyed’ Muslim ‘Jihadists.’ Instead, what we find is the terrorism of brain-washed white Europeans. For people like Steyn, that is more than enough. Tell a true story, treat it as typical (and not an exception) and then draw a scary conclusion. This is the standard operating procedure of alarmists like Steyn.

It is high time that these provocateurs, who have brainwashed terrorists like Breivik, denounce Breivik’s evil and apologize to Muslims. They simply cannot skirt off their responsibility for his heinous crime. The western government agencies need to investigate the activities of groups like the Jihad Watch, Atlas Shrugs, Stop Islamization of Europe (and America), and Jerusalem Summit that promote bigotry and xenophobia, and offer the justification for terrorism. They must also follow the trail of money that comes to these hate groups.

In a society where anti-Islamic xenophobic sentiments and open bigotry are tolerated, there will be hateful zealots who would feel legitimized in taking criminal measures. The government must make it clear that there is no room for such chauvinism in this age. They must also know that political opportunism, by tying knots with groups that are openly racists and bigots, much like what has happened in places like Israel and Denmark, is not a viable option and can actually do more harm than good.

As I have noted many times, Europe has never been able to shelve its innate Fascistic leaning that has defined much of its history. It is no accident that there are too many far right parties that draw upon two distinct constituencies. The first is a core of hardline racist bigots who are willing crusaders for neo-Nazi Fascism. These bigots, however, have been joined by a swathe of new supporters (the second group) whose hostility toward immigrants, minorities and Muslims is shaped less by old-fashioned racism than by a newfangled sense of fear and insecurity. They are dissatisfied with their lives, anxious about the future and distrustful of any authority figure. As noted by some area experts, there is little that can be done to sway the opinions of the hardline racists. This does not mean pandering to their prejudices. It means, to the contrary, challenging those prejudices openly and robustly. It means, for instance, challenging their false idea that immigration is responsible for the lack of jobs and housing, or that lower immigration would mean a lower crime rate, or that Western societies are becoming “Islamized.”

Truly, the western governments should have an open and honest debate about why immigration is important for their very survival in this age. It may be a great idea that when their leaders visit New York for attending the UN sessions that they should opt for taking a ride in a taxicab, driven by a naturalized citizen of the USA, to places like Queens in New York City and Edison in New Jersey to get a flavor of what multiculturalism truly means.

As noted by the erudite Shaykh Abdal Qadir, every year on November 11, the masses gather around the Cenotaph in London for the sacred silence. On the Cenotaph is carved the new creed of humanism: “One day we will understand.”

It is time for the Europeans to recognize the new realities of our time – globalization and multiculturalism. Embrace them right or be left out in the dustbin of history!

The Israeli ‘Democracy’ – an oxymoron concept

As I have noted many times Israel gives a bad name to democracy. In spite of all its pretensions, it has always been an apartheid state with rules and laws that discriminate people based on religion and ethnicity. Israel's 'equality under law' simply doesn't apply to Palestinians, even to juveniles. According to a report published last week by B'Tselem (the Israeli human rights group), just one Palestinian juvenile defendant out of 835 was acquitted of stone-throwing over the past six years. (That is like 0.1 percent! Even the murderers in the USA have a much better statistics on getting acquitted!) The others were convicted, mostly through plea bargains. About 60 percent of the convicted minors served prison terms of four months or more. Among those who served sentences of a few days and up to two months in prison were 19 defendants who were 12 to 13 years old.

It should be noted here that the Palestinian juveniles are not the only ones throwing rocks. The Israelis do throw, too, against the Palestinians, and sometimes against their own security forces. But when was the last time you read or heard about an Israeli juvenile or adult put behind the prison for rock-throwing against Palestinians? The violent Israeli youth who attacked soldiers and policemen who had been sent at the government's behest to Gaza and the northern West Bank to evacuate settlements six years ago did not have to wait long before their sentences were mitigated. As noted in a recent Haaretz editorial, Israel's pretension to be a country in which equality under the law prevails appears ridiculous in the face of the other justice system that applies to juveniles that are not Palestinian.

The Arab citizens of the state of Israel are routinely discriminated in everything from the housing permits and share of water and natural resources to the wages earned, and from job opportunities to jail sentences. This discriminatory practice is not just limited to the leading rabbis who routinely call on their followers not to hire Arabs for work, but also to the government sector. Last week, Israel’s Civil Service Commission's annual report on employment of Arabs in the service, unveiled the fact that only 7.52 percent of Israel's 62,719 civil-service employees are Arabs. This figure is far below the Arab citizens' 20-percent representation in the population as a whole. More disturbingly, most of those employed in civil service are in the lower echelons of the job. The proportion of Arabs in the top three pay grades of the service is below 1.5 percent. Arab women are massively underrepresented, constituting less than 3 percent of civil-service employees.

Recently the government of Israel passed a politically opportunistic and antidemocratic law that is sure to transform Israel’s legal code into an alarmingly dictatorial document. The Boycott Law, approved in a 47-to-38 vote by the Knesset, effectively bans any public call for a boycott — economic, cultural or academic — against Israel or its West Bank settlements, making such action a punishable offense. This law would enable Israeli citizens to bring civil suits against people and organizations instigating such boycotts, and subject violators to monetary penalties. Companies and organizations supporting a boycott could be barred from bidding on government contracts. Nonprofit groups could lose tax benefits. The NGO probes bill will investigate the funding sources and activities of leftist NGOs deemed by Israeli hardliners as harmful to Israel. This McCarthite bill will allow Knesset members to serve as both investigators and prosecutors, and also judges.

It is obvious that Israel’s ultra-conservative and racist government is determined to catapult the state into an era in which gagging people becomes accepted legal practice. It also aims to crush a growing push by Palestinians and their international supporters for boycotts, disinvestment and sanctions against Israel. Since last year, many Israeli artists and intellectuals, as well international artists, have canceled performances and programs in Israel and the West Bank to protest the illegal settlements. The advocates said the law was needed to prevent efforts to “delegitimize” Israel. Why should anyone be concerned about delegitimization of Israel, if it was a true democracy and not a fake one since no country can be delegitimized if it holds true to its democratic principles?

Anastasia Michaeli, an MK from Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu, speaking of herself and her many party colleagues born in the former U.S.S.R., declared that the NGO probe bill "shows how patriotic we are." Like her communist ancestors in the days of Lenin, she and her Soviet expatriate colleagues are obviously more ‘patriotic’ than the indigenous people for the ‘good’ of the nation!

There is no shortage of ghosts of Joseph McCarthy in the ruling coalition. Danny Danon, who is a member of the ruling party and an MK, has been the guests of the loonies of the American right - Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck - during their visits to Israel. He got a law passed: Security prisoners who have been pardoned and have committed any sort of offense will be returned to prison without trial. He also called for throwing Balad MK Hanin Zuabi in prison, with or without trial. As for the Palestinians who are already there, he has demanded the cessation of their visits and "benefits.” So much chatter for the Middle East’s ‘only democracy!’

Well, in spite of such monumental failings with democracy, the state of Israel still enjoys much support within the Christian evangelicals who believe that their selfish support for the apartheid state will expedite the second coming of Jesus Christ. For the last few years they have been hosting an annual event in Washington D.C. This year is no different.

Over 5000 Christians, mainly Evangelicals, gathered this week at the Convention Center in Washington D.C. for the annual conference of the organization CUFI (Christians United For Israel). Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Christian Zionist conference via satellite, telling them to support Israel. Michael Oren, Ambassador to the U.S., compared the participants' support of Israel to British military officer Orde Wingate’s training of Jewish paramilitary units before the establishment of the State of Israel. News commentator Glenn Beck worked the audience into a frenzy calling upon the conference attendees to declare that they, too, are Jewish. He exhorted, "Let us declare 'I am a Jew’.” Pastor John Hagee, the founder of CUFI, told the audience, many of whom were waving both Israeli and American flags, “We gathered here with one message: Israel today, Israel tomorrow, and Israel forever.” "If the US Administration forces Israel to divide Jerusalem – God will turn his back to the United States of America. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is watching America," Hagee continued.

For the Zionist heirs of Jabotinsky and Begin, the founding dream has been two-fold: First, a vision of Israel as an authentic democracy; second, doing everything possible to see to it that the West Bank and East Jerusalem remain in Israeli hands forever (as part of Jewish ‘real estate’ handed over by God). As noted by many area experts, however, Israel cannot be a democracy and a Jewish state at the same time when it refuses to return to the 1967 border. And this is where a serious debate is necessary for the world Jewry. Already many progressive minded Jews – living both inside and outside the apartheid state -- are refusing to accept the utterly suicidal and wickedly chauvinistic narratives scripted by their chauvinist friends inside Israel and the vultures and hyenas of the Christian Zionism waiting in the fringe.

A J Street poll published last Thursday shows that 57% of U.S. Jews back a Middle East peace plan based on 1967 borders with mutually agreed-upon land swaps, while 43% oppose such a move. According to the poll, 83% of the American Jews support a U.S.-brokered solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while 70% want the administration to offer a peace plan that proposes set borders and security arrangements. J Street’s poll, which was conducted in mid-July among 800 American Jews, showed nearly a third in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state in the UN, while another 18% who are hesitant of American recognition.

Suffice it to say that the tides are changing, hopefully, for the right reason.

What about Kashmir?

Last week, the UN welcomed South Sudan as its latest member. For nearly half a century the Christian missionaries have championed the cause of the south Sudanese, mostly animist and Christian, to break into pieces the largest African republic. Their efforts paid off when President George W. Bush elevated Sudan to the top of his foreign policy agenda after coming to office in 2000. In 2005, the American government pushed the southern rebels and the central government to sign a comprehensive peace agreement that guaranteed the southerners the right to secede. An American-backed treaty set the stage for a referendum in January in which more than 98 percent of southerners voted for independence. Last Saturday the southerners officially proclaimed their independence.

For the last 63 years, the Palestinians have also been seeking independence – much like the south Sudanese. So have the Kashmiri people for the last 64 years. And their plight continues, in spite of the repeated promises made by India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to hold a plebiscite on the question of Kashmir’s accession to either India or Pakistan!

Jammu and Kashmir, the northwestern region of the Indian sub-continent, has a population that is predominantly Muslim. For nearly five hundred years since 1349, Kashmir was ruled by Muslim rulers. In 1819, however, the region came under the oppressive rule of a Sikh ruler who imposed unbearable taxes and many anti-Islamic laws, including banning of cow slaughter, closing down of mosques and stopping the call to prayer (adhan).

With the collapse of the Mughal and Afghan rule, and after the First Anglo-Sikh War of 1845, Kashmir was first ceded by the Treaty of Lahore to the East India Company, and shortly after sold by the Treaty of Amritsar to Gulab Singh (a Dogra Hindu), Raja of Jammu, who thereafter was given the title Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir. The Dogras administered the region under the British tutelage, a process that was to continue until 1947 when India and Pakistan were partitioned off from British India.
In the British census of India of 1941, Kashmir registered a Muslim majority population of 77%, a Hindu population of 20% and a sparse population of Buddhists and Sikhs comprising the remaining 3%. In the 1901 Census of the British India the population of the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu was 2,905,578. Of these 2,154,695 were Muslims (74.16%), 689,073 Hindus (23.72%), 25,828 Sikhs, and 35,047 Buddhists.

For almost a century a small Hindu elite had ruled over a vast and impoverished Muslim peasantry, who were abused like slaves. Much like East Bengal (today’s Bangladesh), these Hindu absentee landowners (of Jammu and Kashmir) extracted unbearable taxes and revenues from the local Muslim peasantry. Driven into docility by chronic indebtedness to Hindu landlords and loan-sharks or moneylenders, the Muslim peasants had no political rights. Prem Nath Bazaz, a Kashmiri Hindu journalist, wrote in 1941: “The poverty of the Muslim masses is appalling. ... Most are landless laborers, working as serfs for absentee [Hindu] landlords ... Almost the whole brunt of official corruption is borne by the Muslim masses.” [Kashmir: roots of conflict, paths to peace by Sumantra Bose]

When the British Raj decided on partitioning its crown jewel into Pakistan and India it left the status of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir (similar to the Muslim ruled Hyderabad) unresolved in spite of its overwhelming Muslim population. After rumors spread that the Maharaja supported the annexation of Kashmir by India, in October 1947 Muslim revolutionaries in western Kashmir and Pakistani tribals from Dir entered Kashmir, intending to liberate it from Dogra rule. Unable to withstand the invasion, the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession on 25 October 1947 that was accepted by the government of India on 27 October 1947.

According to Burton Stein, a scholar on India, "Kashmir was neither as large nor as old an independent state as Hyderabad; it had been created rather off-handedly by the British after the first defeat of the Sikhs in 1846, as a reward to a former official who had sided with the British. The Himalayan kingdom was connected to India through a district of the Punjab, but its population was 77 per cent Muslim and it shared a boundary with Pakistan. Hence, it was anticipated that the maharaja would accede to Pakistan when the British paramountcy ended on 14–15 August [1947]. When he hesitated to do this, Pakistan launched a guerrilla onslaught meant to frighten its ruler into submission. Instead the Maharaja appealed to Mountbatten for assistance, and the governor-general agreed on the condition that the ruler accede to India. Indian soldiers entered Kashmir and drove the Pakistani-sponsored irregulars from all but a small section of the state. The United Nations was then invited to mediate the quarrel. The UN mission insisted that the opinion of Kashmiris must be ascertained, while India insisted that no referendum could occur until all of the state had been cleared of irregulars." [History of India]

In the last days of 1948, a ceasefire was agreed under UN auspices, but since the plebiscite demanded by the UN was never carried out by India, relations between India and Pakistan soured. The rest is history!

In a broadcast to the nation on 3 November 1947, Nehru said, "We have declared that the fate of Kashmir is ultimately to be decided by the people. That pledge we have given not only to the people of Kashmir and to the world. We will not and cannot back out of it." That statement was later collaborated by his letter No. 368, dated 21 November 1947, addressed to the Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan, in which Nehru said, "I have repeatedly stated that as soon as peace and order have been established, Kashmir should decide of accession by Plebiscite or referendum under international auspices such as those of United Nations."

In his statement in the Indian Constituent Assembly on 25 November 1947, Nehru said, "In order to establish our bonafide, we have suggested that when the people are given the chance to decide their future, this should be done under the supervision of an impartial tribunal such as the United Nations Organisation. The issue in Kashmir is whether violence and naked force should decide the future or the will of the people."
In his many letters and declarations, Nehru often cited the “request” of Kashmir’s Hindu Maharaja’s government towards “Kashmir’s accession to India,” which was accepted by his government. However, later, Nehru did send Indian army to occupy princely states of Hyderabad and Junagarh against the wishes of their Muslim rulers who had decided to join Pakistan. So much for the empty promises and wishes or requests of the ruled and rulers! As we all know by now, none of those promises made by Nehru or those who came to power after him honored the international obligations promised to the Kashmiri people and the rest of the world.

Over time the Indian government has increasingly relied on military presence and a curtailment of civil liberties to achieve its aims in Indian Occupied Kashmir, which is to prolong its illegitimate occupation of the territory by hook or crook. People there have no political rights. Sham and rigged elections are held to support the ongoing occupation by the Indian government. It is not difficult to understand, how people’s agony and frustration have given rise to armed insurgency movements against India, which has stationed nearly 700,000 of its troops in the disputed territory. These troops have engaged in widespread humanitarian abuses and have engaged in extra-judicial killings - often for entertainment against boredom. The "Armed Forces Special Powers Act" grants the military, wide powers of arrest, the right to shoot to kill, and to occupy or destroy property in counterinsurgency operations. Published reports suggest that at least 40,000 Kashmiri Muslims were murdered by the Indian occupation forces. A 2005 study conducted by Médecins Sans Frontières also found that Kashmiri women are among the worst sufferers of sexual violence in the world, with 11.6% of respondents reporting that they had been victims of sexual abuse by Indian forces.

Since 2000 the ‘insurgency’ has become far less violent and has instead taken on the form of peaceful protests and marches. Certain groups have also chosen to lay down their arms and look for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. And yet such Gandhian non-violence movement has not generated any kind of change of heart from the Indian government. Even peaceful activists like Arundhati Roy are harassed by the government on sedition charges for so-called anti-Indian speeches and writings. In her speech, Roy rightfully claimed that Jammu & Kashmir valley had never been integral part of India and that it is a historical fact. She pleaded with Indian government to abide by the wishes of Kashmiri people.

There is no alternative to resolving this most agonizing of conflicts of our time without allowing the people of the disputed territory to decide their fate in conformity with the original pledges made by the Indian government, under the UN supervision, much like what has happened with South Sudan. Unfortunately, like the other ‘democracy’ - Israel, after 64 years the Indian government is much stronger today both economically and militarily, thanks to the billions of dollars poured from outside. And with the support it enjoys within the ‘Amen Corner’ of the Capitol House, the Pentagon and the White House, it is in no hurry to do what is right. Like Israel, with America’s foreign and defense policy so much skewed in its favor, it fancies that time is on its side and it can use every trick to delay holding the plebiscite in the occupied territories.

The poor Kashmiris, unfortunately, don’t have a powerful partner that the south Sudanese had to redress their grievances and must learn the ugly truth that there is too much hypocrisy in our world and the difference between a democracy and an autocracy is often an elusive one. It is easy to get rid of an undemocratic monster than a ‘democratic’ demon that uses the veneer of democracy to oppress a minority and confuse others.

My Response to Geert Wilders

In his website, Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician, posted an article – My message to Muslims, which deserve some response. Here below is my response to him.

Mr. Wilders,
In your message to Muslims you mentioned about your unpleasant experience visiting Egypt in 1982 as an 18-year old almost penniless student. Any wise person would have advised you not to undertake such a journey into a foreign land when you can’t speak the language of the people you visited and don’t have any local guide or acquaintance to help you, let alone being penniless. It was a stupid decision. And yet, as your first impression you were ‘overwhelmed by the kindness, friendliness and helpfulness of its people.’ Doesn’t it say a lot about the defining character of these warm-hearted people who in spite of their dire poverty and living under one of the worst despots of our time made you feel so welcome?

You were surprised to see how frightened people had felt when it was announced that the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was coming to visit Sharm el-Sheikh. Is it difficult to understand how this western puppet was perceived in his country? You wrote, “It was a weird experience; Mubarak is not considered the worst of the Islamic tyrants…” Mubarak was a tyrant who did not follow the dictates of the Qur’an. If he had, he should have known that tyranny is one of the worst sins in Islam. [See my books - Islamic Wisdom, and Wisdom of Mankind - for many citations on this subject.] And yet, like a brain-dead moron who has learning disabilities, you equated the attitude of the Egyptian people towards Mubarak with those of ”the 7th century Arabs … in the presence of Muhammad, who, as several verses describe, “cast terror into their hearts’ (suras 8:12, 8:60, 33:26, 59:12).” Bravo! What a discovery!

You may like to read my book – Muhammad: the Messenger of Allah – An Exposition of His Life for Curious Western Readers – (available in the Amazon.com) to judge how Muhammad’s (S) contemporary Arabs felt about him. The poem below from poet Hassan ibn Thabit (R), an erstwhile ardent enemy of Islam, is sufficient to belie your allegations.
By God, no woman has conceived and given birth
To one like the Apostle, the Prophet and guide of his people;
Nor has God created among his creatures
One more faithful to his sojourner or his promise
Than he who was the source of light,
Blessed in his deeds, just and upright. (Sirat Rasulallah by Muhammad Ibn Ishaq)
As a diehard friend of Israel, you should know that one of the great Rabbis once advised a charlatan: “Don’t get too excited about the Talmud unless you are a believing Jew who leads a kosher life.” Any student of the tafsir and tawil (interpretation) of the Qur’an would likewise tell you that the Qur’anic verses are not to be cherry picked to suit one’s whims. They have a Speaker, an audience, time, place and context.

The verse 8:12 was revealed in the context of the Battle of Badr when the pagan (Mushriq) Arabs from Makkah came to attack the nascent community of believers in the outskirts of Madinah. In the said verse, Allah inspires the Angels saying: “When thy Lord inspired the angels, (saying): I am with you. So make those who believe stand firm. I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve.”

The verse 8:60, cited by you, likewise is all about making necessary preparations to defend against the attack of enemies. If it had not been for the defense of the faith put up by those early Muslims, there would not have been any Muslim today. The verse 33:26 and the preceding ones are about the Battle of Khunduq when a section of Jews living in Madinah violated their treaty of peaceful coexistence with Muslims and committed treason by aiding the Arab Mushriqs. It reads: “And those of the People of the Book who aided them - Allah did take them down from their strongholds and cast terror into their hearts.” They were punished for their treason.

Your reference to verse 59:12 again shows your dismal ignorance. It says, “If they are expelled, never will they go out with them; and if they are attacked (in fight), they will never help them; and if they do help them, they will turn their backs; so they will receive no help.” Here Allah is talking about the hypocrites amongst the Muslims who aligned themselves with the enemies of Islam. If a fight broke out, these hypocrites true to their innate nature would even abandon their clients.

So, I fail to see the connection of those verses in relation to how Egyptian Muslims felt about their tyrant ruler – Mubarak, who behaved like the Pharaoh. They were terrorized by Mubarak, much like how the German Jews must have felt about the visit of Hitler and his Nazi henchmen to their towns.

During your visit to Cairo, you found the city dirty and its inhabitants poor compared to Israel. Your instincts told you that ‘it had something to do with the different cultures of Israel and Egypt.’ Comparing any Israeli city with a mega city like Cairo that is inhabited by more than ten million people is silly and naive. In spite of all the wealth that America enjoys, a visit to any major city, including my own one in Philadelphia, would show gaping holes of poverty, crime and filth. There are places you won’t like to walk into and then there are places you would rather avoid driving through even during the daytime. There are many homeless people here in the USA that sleep on the footpaths and who eat out of trash cans near restaurants and grocery stores. Never mind the high unemployment situation these days, even in the early 1980s while living in California I noticed such sad incidents first hand. If these be the reality inside the most prosperous nation on earth, do these failings speak about American culture or some other more obvious indicators? I am sure Holland is not immune from such problems either.

If you are thinking about the economic aid that Egypt receives from the USA, you ought to know that the annual aid is equivalent to a per capita share of a meager $2.60 (2009) in a country with a Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) of $5,400 (in 2008). That is less than 0.05 percent. In contrast, the per capita share that Israel received from the USA – governmental and non-governmental - is more than a hundred times. While ordinary Egyptians remained jobless and hungry, the puppet regime of Mubarak was selling natural gas to Israel at less than a fair market price, let alone charging too little for use of the Suez Canal. It was simply too convenient to have this brutal and anti-people dictator stay in power, a process that was to continue for nearly three decades, thanks to the material support provided by Israel and other western governments. It does not take a genius to understand why ordinary Egyptians felt betrayed by the so-called bastions of democracy. Yes, there was that ‘conspiracy’ to keep Mubarak in power.

You mentioned that as a dirt poor traveler, you drank untreated water which caused diarrhea. You went to a hostel and rented a spot on the floor for two dollars a day. You complain about the miserable state of the hostel, but forget that at that paltry sum, you should have considered yourself lucky to have found a roof over your head. I doubt if you could rent any space in 1982 for that cheap price in Holland. You audaciously complain: “Once Egypt had been the most advanced civilization on earth. Why had it not progressed along with the rest of the world?”

One can only pity a foolish penniless traveler like you who goes to visit a foreign country and then complains about his miserable condition! Granted that Egypt has not ‘progressed’ much, but can you honestly say that under similar conditions a visitor to your native Holland would have received better service? Whom are you kidding?
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Mr. Wilders, for Egypt’s lack of ‘progress’, whatever that means, you lashed out at Muslims by quoting Winston Churchill, a British soldier and war correspondent for the British Raj who later became Great Britain’s Prime Minister. You quote Churchill as saying, “Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities – but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it… No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.”

Haiti is one of the poorest countries in our planet, and this, in spite of her unmistakable Christian culture. Is Christianity to be blamed for her lack of progress? How about Ethiopia, Central African Republic, the Solomon Islands, Zimbabwe, Liberia and Congo – six of the ten poorest countries in the world - all with Christian majority population?

Well, such bigotry ridden words from the mouth of the foremost colonist of his time should not surprise anyone. Lest we forget, it was Churchill who as the Prime Minister starved millions of Indians to death in the Bengal famine of 1943. He brought this holocaust – arguably the first and the worst of the 20th century - upon these people and yet had a selective amnesia not to mention anything about this monumental crime in his self-serving six-volume memoir ”The Second World War” for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. (According to Dr. Gideon Polya some 6 to 7 million people died in the province of Bengal and her contiguous provinces as a result of the famine that lasted from 1942 to 1945.)

The ‘man-made’ famine has long been one of the darkest chapters of the British Raj. In her book “Churchill’s Secret War”, Madhusree Mukerjee, like a good problem-solving engineer, uncovered evidence that Churchill was directly responsible for the appalling suffering. Analysis of World War II cabinet meetings, forgotten ministry records and personal archives show that some of India’s grain was also exported to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to meet needs there, even though the island wasn’t experiencing the same hardship; Australian wheat sailed past Indian cities (where the bodies of those who had died of starvation littered the streets) to depots in the Mediterranean and the Balkans; and offers of American and Canadian food aid were turned down. India was not permitted to use its own sterling reserves, or indeed its own ships, to import food. And because the British government paid inflated prices in the open market to ensure supplies, grain became unaffordable for ordinary Indians. Lord Wavell, appointed Viceroy of India that fateful year, considered the Churchill government’s attitude to India ‘negligent, hostile and contemptuous.’ “It wasn’t a question of Churchill being inept: sending relief to Bengal was raised repeatedly and he and his close associates thwarted every effort,” Mukerjee wrote. “The United States and Australia offered to send help but couldn’t because the war cabinet was not willing to release ships. And when the US offered to send grain on its own ships, that offer was not followed up by the British,” she added.

Churchill was a racist and a bigot. He derided Gandhi as a ‘half-naked holy man’ and once told the Secretary of State for India, Leopold Amery: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion (Hinduism).” The famine was their (Indians) own fault, he declared at a war-cabinet meeting, for ‘breeding like rabbits.’

In spite of his hostile remarks against Muslims, it is well known amongst researchers that Churchill favored Islam over Hinduism. “Winston’s racist hatred was due to his loving the empire in the way a jealous husband loves his trophy wife: he would rather destroy it than let it go,” wrote Mukerjee.

As I have stated elsewhere these European colonizers – Dutch, British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgians, Russians and Italians – were inherently racists and bigots, as are today’s Zionists in Israel. The life of colonized people did not matter to them. By the way, in India, that famine of 1943 was not the only one that was man-made to punish her people. Mention must also be made of the Bengal Famine of 1769-1779 in which 10 million people were starved to death in a very systematic way, which was nothing short of genocide, by the English colonial administration. That was 1 in 3 amongst the population of 30 million dead – planned and executed with the intent of containing any future rebellion from able-bodied Bengalis. As noted by Amaresh Misra in his book “War of Civilizations: India AD 1857” an estimated 10 million people died in British reprisals for the 1857 Indian rebellion. Another 700,000 people of Orissa died in the famine of 1866.

So the hostile and unkind statement of a racist and bigot colonist against the colonized people should not be the litmus test by which the latter should be evaluated.
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Mr. Wilders, you say that you do not hate Muslims, but feel saddened by ‘how Islam has robbed them of their dignity.’ What a ludicrous claim! What was the status of Arabs before Islam? Did Islam exalt them or rob them of their dignity when these Arabs became the torchbearers of knowledge, when your ancestors in Europe led a savage life?

To support your thesis, you mention the 2002 fire accident in Saudi Arabia where some 15 school children died. Obviously the action of the Saudi guard who refused to let these girls leave the school campus because they had not worn their headscarves is wrong and simply inexcusable. However, when you take this worst example to denigrate the faith of 1.6 billion human beings, it is not analysis, but shows paralysis of your intelligence.

You say that “girls are not valued highly in Islam; the Koran says that the birth of a daughter makes a father’s “face darken and he is filled with gloom” (sura 43:17).” There you go again! You cherry-pick a verse from the Qur’an to suit your evil thesis that ‘Islam is inhumane’. If you had studied the verse well, you would have known that this verse has everything to do with the Mushriqs of Arabia who not only didn’t like female children but would even bury them alive. In contrast, Muhammad (S), the father of 4 daughters himself, elevated the status of women giving them property rights, something that was unheard of in those days. There are numerous Prophetic Traditions on the treatment of women which you can read from my books. I shall quote below just three to prove you wrong.

Muhammad (S) said, “One who brings up two girls right from their childhood till their maturity will appear on the Day of Judgment attached to me like two fingers of hand (entering paradise).” [Muslim: Anas (R)]

Muhammad (S) said, “O Allah, I declare sinful any failure to safeguard the rights of two weak ones, namely, orphans and women.” [Nasa’i: Abu Shuraih Khuwalid ibn ‘Amr al-Khuza’i (R)]

A man came to the Prophet (S) and asked: ‘O Messenger of Allah, which person of all people is best entitled to kind treatment and the good companionship from me?’ He (S) answered: ‘Your mother.’ The man asked: ‘And then?’ He said: ‘Your mother.’ (The man asked again:) ‘And after her?’ He said: ‘Your mother.’ (The man asked:) ‘And after that?’ He said: ‘Your father.’ [Bukhari and Muslim: Abu Hurayrah (R)]

As to your other comments about your personal beliefs or unbelief, and preference for an anthropomorphic God, I won’t waste my time trying to dissuade you. Suffice it to say that you have an abysmal ignorance of and unfathomable hostility towards Islam. You need to educate yourself from the proper sources and not from some intellectual frauds who tied their knots with the devil. Let me share with you some basic concepts about Islam, starting with monotheism:
“All praise belongs to God who has no equal and no peer and Who is far sublime to bear any similarity to His creatures.
He (God) was before anything came into existence and will remain after everything has come to an end.
As His (God's) Being is Eternal, therefore, no time could be imagined to say that He existed since then, similarly no period could be assigned for duration of His Existence.
To assign a place to Him (God) by considering Him within or over a place means to subject Him to the limitations of space and to allot Him an importance secondary to space, it also means to believe that some place can exist outside the sphere of His Omnipresence.
He (God) was seeing even when there was no created thing to see. He is One and Alone, because He has no companion who could keep His company or whose absence He would miss.
He is One but not a numerical unity which can be mathematically and logically subdivided.
He (God) did not originate His creatures to strengthen His Kingdom or to arm Himself against the change of circumstances, or defend Himself against His rivals and enemies.
Bringing into existence of the Universes has neither tired Him (God), nor origination of the nature has exhausted Him, neither He felt helplessness and deficiency in having complete control over His creatures, nor He ever had any uncertainty about the program of creation; He never doubted about His decisions.
He (God) has not permitted human mind to grasp the Essence of His Being, yet He has not prevented them from realizing His presence.
He (God) knew the very details of everything before He brought everyone of them into existence.
He (God) has not incarnated Himself into His creatures, and it cannot be said that He is part of the Universe or things created by Him; neither He is far away from His creation nor is He aloof from it without having control over it.
God has never left any human being without guidance and education from His Prophets, without a Holy Book, without conclusive, effective and certain proof of His Godhood and without a clear and bright path to His Realm.
When God created mankind He was not in need of their obedience and prayers, neither was He nervous of their disobedience. Because disobedience or insubordination of men cannot harm Him, similarly obedience of obedient people cannot do Him any good. He is beyond the reach of harm and benefit.” [Nahjul Balagha: Ali (R)]
“The first step of religion is to accept, understand and realize God as the Lord; the perfection of understanding lies in conviction and confirmation, and the true way of conviction is to sincerely believe that there is no God but He. The correct form of belief in His Unity is to realize that He is absolutely pure and above nature that nothing can be added to or subtracted from His Being. That is, one should realize that there is no difference between His Person and His attributes, and His attributes should not be differentiated or distinguished from His Person. Whoever accepts His attributes to be other than His Person has actually forsaken the idea of Unity of God and believes in duality. Such a person in fact believes Him to exist in parts.
“Islam means obedience to God. Obedience to God means having sincere faith in Him. Such a faith means to believe in His power. A belief in His power means recognizing and accepting His Majesty. Acceptance of His Majesty means fulfilling the obligations laid down by Him. And fulfillment of obligations means action.
“It is a religion whose followers compete with and try to surpass each other in goodness and virtue. Confirmation of truth and justice are its ways, enlightenment of humanity is its chief object, to expect and to face death boldly and nobly is one of the main items of its teachings. This world is the place where Islam wants to prepare you for high positions in Hereafter, therefore, the Day of Reckoning will be the day when its true followers will surpass others and heaven will be their reward.” [Nahjul Balagha: Ali (R)]

Mr. Wilders, your comments about Muhammad (S) are untrue and show your deep-seated prejudice. Read the Bible, esp. the book of Numbers (Ch. 31), to understand the treatment of the conquered people by the Old Testament Prophets. As I’ve said earlier, Islam could not have survived without the sacrifice of and active resistance from its noble defenders against their foes. Have you heard about Bilal ibn Rabah, Sumayya, Khabbab bin al-Aratt, and Habib ibn Zayd al-Ansari? If you have not, read my book – The Book of Devotional Stories, Islamic Book Trust, Malaysia.

Muhammad (S) and his followers were persecuted and forced to migrate. When attacked they fought back and won the battle of both might and mind. And yet, when he conquered his city of birth, he forgave his enemies. Why show such compassion against enemies, if he wasn’t merciful? You won’t be able to show me a single example of such nobility from the past and the present. In all those battles that Muhammad (S) led, the total death count was miniscule compared to those killed by religious followers of Moses (AS) amongst the children of Israel for their idolatry. And as any Christian evangelist would tell you there won’t be too many surviving after Jesus returns. It would be an era of mass slaughter, beginning with the Jews. If Muhammad (S) is a mass murderer, what epithets do you have in store for Moses (AS), let alone Jesus (AS) – the son of Mary?

Are you also aware of the fact that Mary, the mother of Jesus (AS), was only 12 to 14 years old when Joseph the carpenter who was 90 years old married her? In contrast, A’isha bint Abu Bakr (R) was 19 years old when Muhammad (S) consummated the marriage with her. If Muhammad (S) is a pedophile, what about St. Joseph, and how about the Biblical Prophets? Were they child molesters? Was Jesus a homosexual, too, as hinted by early fathers of Christianity (see also: Gospels according to Mark 14:49-52 and John 13:23)?

You say that Islam is opposed to freedom. Freedom to do what – harm and insult others – something that you have mastered, or colonize, kill and plunder vast territories of Asia, Africa and Latin America – something that the Dutch and other western governments committed to enrich them? Islam says that God has given inborn disposition to human minds to shape themselves either towards good or towards evil. [Nahjul Balagha] Man is, therefore, not compelled by determinism (jabr). He is also not given absolute freedom (qadar) to defy the laws of nature. But the matter is a via media between the two.

You say that Muslims are a fatalistic people. It is a wrong reading of their attitude. As believers they know that nothing happens without God’s will. Thus, they use the phrase InshaAllah. Are you aware of the Epistle of James 4:15, where it says that people should remember that they never know what tomorrow will bring, and 'Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”'? Is this statement in the so-called NT any different than what is contained in the Surat Al Kahf (18):24: "And never say of anything, 'I shall do such and such thing tomorrow. Except (with the saying): 'If God wills!' And remember your Lord when you forget...'"? So, why this silly accusation against Muslims?

Your ignorance is simply pathetic. You may like to read my lecture on ‘Islam and Co-existence’ at the interfaith meeting at Vanderbilt University, Nashville. Also, read my article – What I didn’t say and Missionary Myopia – in response to chauvinistic comments made by some fundamentalist Christian Islamophobes.

You said that ‘most Muslims never raise their voice against the radicals.’ Not true. Islam is opposed to extremism. Muslims have been raising their voices against extremists of all kinds – Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Just visit The American Muslim website to view how wrong you are.

As a pin-headed racist and a bigot, you can claim whatever you like, but surely you are no lover of freedom and liberty. Your obscene xenophobia has shown that you are a curse to humanity, even to your own people. The people with wisdom already see in you a Dutch reincarnation of Hitler against its Muslim inhabitants. You, surely, suffer from extreme prejudice, dementia, paranoia and hallucination and need a check with a good psychiatrist to treat your mental health. The sooner the better!

By the way, I don’t hate you, but hate your evil activities that divide our world into hateful camps. That is not the future that is desirable to any sane human being.