America’s Third World Economy
For a number of years I reported on the monthly nonfarm payroll jobs data. The data did not support the praises economists were singing to the “New Economy.” The “New Economy” consisted, allegedly, of financial services, innovation, and high-tech services.
This economy was taking the place of the old “dirty fingernail” economy of industry and manufacturing. Education would retrain the workforce, and we would move on to a higher level of prosperity.
Time after time I reported that there was no sign of the “New Economy” jobs, but that the old economy jobs were disappearing. The only net new jobs were in lowly paid domestic services such as waitresses and bartenders, retail clerks, health care and social assistance (mainly ambulatory health care services), and, before the bubble burst, construction.
The facts, issued monthly by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, had no impact on the “New Economy” propaganda. Economists continued to wax eloquently about how globalism was a boon for our future.
The millions of unemployed today are blamed on the popped real estate bubble and the subprime derivative financial crisis. However, the US economy has been losing jobs for a decade. As manufacturing, information technology, software engineering, research, development, and tradable professional services have been moved offshore, the American middle class has shriveled. The ladders of upward mobility that made American an “opportunity society” have been dismantled.
The wage and salary cost savings obtained by giving Americans’ jobs to Chinese and Indians have enriched corporate CEOs, shareholders, and Wall Street at the expense of the middle class and America’s consumer economy.
The loss of middle class jobs and incomes was covered up for years by the expansion of consumer debt to substitute for the lack of income growth. Americans refinanced their homes and spent the equity, and they maxed out their credit cards.
Consumer debt expansion has run its course, and there is no possibility of continuing to drive the economy with additions to consumer debt.
Economists and policymakers continue to ignore the fact that all employment in tradable goods and services can be moved offshore (or filled by foreigners brought in on H-1b and L-1 visas). The only replacement jobs are in nontradable domestic services, that is, those jobs that require “hands-on” activity, such as ambulatory health services, barbers, cleaning services, waitresses and bartenders—jobs that describe the labor force of a third world country. Even many of these jobs are now filed with foreigners brought in on R-1 type visas from Russia, Ukraine, Thailand, Romania, and elsewhere.
The loss of American jobs and the compression of consumer income by low wages has removed consumer demand as the driving force of the economy. This is the reason expansionary monetary and fiscal policies are having no effect.
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A Dysfunctional Foreign Policy Team: The Obama Administration’s New Problem
By Barry Rubin
In what is probably the most important sign of U.S.-Israel cooperation for this year, the U.S. government has finalized the sale of the advanced F-35 to Israel.
I repeatedly try to explain to people who believe that everything the Obama Administration does is conditioned by some anti-Israel ideology or that everything is bad that this is not so. The task is to maximize the positive, handling difficult problems.
Understanding the difference between a rigid, nothing-ever-changes ideology-determined perception and understanding how things do change (even if it is hypocritical done for political gain) is one of the key factors in doing good political analysis.
Moreover, there’s no country in the world where the make-up of the high-level bureaucracy is as important as in the United States. America has the most decentralized policymaking system of any democratic state. It matters very much who is the secretary of state, defense secretary, national security advisor, and intelligence chief because these are semi-independent entities which have their own institutional point of view. (I discuss this in historical detail in my book, Secrets of State.)
Of course, ultimately all must obey the president and follow his line. But they have a lot of latitude. And when there is a president who is weak or ignorant about international affairs, these people war over his ear, that is try to persuade him as to what he should do with some real effect.
So the resignation of National Security Advisor James Jones is an event of real significance. It’s being portrayed as one of those routine end-of-two-years changes, dissatisfaction with Jones has long been clear. Among other things, he has been accused of being rather unenergetic…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Devout Muslims at Homeland Security?
Why are Muslims chosen to fill important positions in Homeland Security? Arif Alikhan is the Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and DHS, and Kareem Shora is a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council (Read his blog).
No doubt, this is Obama’s way of showing the world that America harbors no ill-will against and is not afraid of Muslims. Not all Americans are comfortable with Obama’s embrace of the religion that continues to pump out people hell-bent on killing Americans.
Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, swore allegiance to the United States when he accepted his citizenship, and, as he was being sentenced to life in prison, told the judge he didn’t mean it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Gunman in Carlsbad School Shooting Was Carrying Jack-O’-Lantern as He Opened Fire, Wounding 2 Students
A gunman dressed in black and carrying a Halloween jack-o’-lantern or can of gasoline wounded two students at an elementary school in Carlsbad, Calif., before being tackled by construction workers.
Ed Willins, who was nearby when the incident occurred, said he saw the workers tackle the gunman. “They were on him immediately,” he told The Times. “They administered a little street justice on him before the cops got there.”
Shortly after noon, the gunman rolled up to Kelly Elementary School in his car, said Lt. Kelly Cain of the Carlsbad Police Department. Armed with a .357-caliber handgun, Cain said, the assailant stepped onto the sidewalk next to the playground and started firing “wildly.”
Two students suffered “non-life threatening” graze wounds and were being treated by doctors, officials said, and the bomb squad was called to examine a propane tank found in the gunman’s car.
After the shooting, parents were notified and came to pick up their children at the school, located in an upper middle-class neighborhood with tall trees and a spacious park.
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Muslim Brotherhood Declares War on America; Will America Notice?
By Barry Rubin
This is one of those obscure Middle East events of the utmost significance that is ignored by the Western mass media, especially because they happen in Arabic, not English; by Western governments, because they don’t fit their policies; and by experts, because they don’t mesh with their preconceptions.
This explicit formulation of a revolutionary program makes it a game-changer. It should be read by every Western decisionmaker and have a direct effect on policy because this development may affect people’s lives in every Western country.
OK, cnough of a build-up? Well, it isn’t exaggerated. So don’t think the next sentence is an anticlimax. Here we go: The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood has endorsed (Arabic) (English translation by MEMRI) anti-American Jihad and pretty much every element in the al-Qaida ideology book. Since the Brotherhood is the main opposition force in Egypt and Jordan as well as the most powerful group, both politically and religiously, in the Muslim communities of Europe and North America this is pretty serious stuff.
By the way, no one can argue that he merely represents old, tired policies of the distant past because the supreme guide who said these things was elected just a few months ago. His position reflects current thinking.
Does that mean the Egyptian, Jordanian, and all the camouflaged Muslim Brotherhood fronts in Europe and North America are going to launch terrorism as one of their affiliates, Hamas, has long done? No.
But it does mean that something awaited for decades has happened: the Muslim Brotherhood is ready to move from the era of propaganda and base-building to one of revolutionary action. At least, its hundreds of thousands of followers are being given that signal. Some of them will engage in terrorist violence as individuals or forming splinter groups; others will redouble their efforts to seize control of their countries and turn them into safe areas for terrorists and instruments for war on the West.
When the extreme and arguably marginal British Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary says that Islam will conquer the West and raise its flag over the White House, that can be treated as wild rhetoric. His remark is getting lots of attention because he said it in English in an interview with CNN. Who cares what he says?
But when the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood says the same thing in Arabic, that’s a program for action, a call to arms for hundreds of thousands of people, and a national security threat to every Western country.
The Brotherhood is the group that often dominates Muslim communities in the West and runs mosques. Its cadre control front groups that are often recognized by Western democratic governments and media as authoritative. Government officials in many countries meet with these groups, ask them to be advisers for counter-terrorist strategies and national policies, and even fund them.
President Barack Obama speaks about a conflict limited solely to al-Qaida. And if one is talking about the current military battle in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen that point makes sense. Yet there is a far bigger and wider battle going on in which revolutionary Islamists seek to overthrow their own rulers and wage long-term, full-scale struggle against the West. If it doesn’t involve violence right now it will when they get strong enough or gain power.
More than three years ago, I warned about this development, in a detailed analysis explaining, “The banner of the Islamist revolution in the Middle East today has largely passed to groups sponsored by or derived from the Muslim Brotherhood.” I pointed out the differences-especially of tactical importance-between the Brotherhood groups and al-Qaida or Hizballah, but also discussed the similarities. This exposure so upset the Brotherhood that it put a detailed response on its official website to deny my analysis.
Yet now here is the Brotherhood’s new supreme guide, Muhammad Badi giving a sermon entitled, “How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny,” translated by MEMRI. Incidentally, everything Badi says is in tune with the stances and holy books of normative Islam. It is not the only possible interpretation but it is a completely legitimate interpretation. Every Muslim knows, even if he disagrees with the Brotherhood’s position, that this isn’t heresy or hijacking or misunderstanding.
Finally, this is the group that many in the West, some in high positions, are urging to be engaged as a negotiating partner because it is supposedly moderate.
What does he say?…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Energy-Policy Goals Versus China’s
China’s economy is booming, even while much of the rest of the world is finding it difficult to recover from the global recession.
The Obama Administration is continuing its goal of making the United States reduce its carbon footprint by enacting climate and energy legislation, although it may come in “chunks” rather than in one comprehensive bill. According, to President Obama, his proposed energy policy “is good for our economy, it’s good for our national security, and, ultimately, it’s good for our environment.”[0]
Of course, those words are motherhood and apple pie, and could apply to almost any set of national goals posed in a convincing manner. But are those goals really the best for our economy, national security, and environment? Well, not according to the Chinese, who are taking a different path to continue their rapid pace of economic growth even in these dire times, by ensuring that future oil supplies are available, and having goals to increase their energy efficiency and decrease their carbon intensity. Might it be wiser to follow China’s lead?
[…]
How Is China Dealing With These Issues?
China has for a long time stated that they would not agree to fixed targets for greenhouse gas emissions reductions, but instead, they would reduce greenhouse gas intensity. Greenhouse gas intensity is the amount of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Last year, China pledged it would cut the intensity of its carbon (the largest component of greenhouse gases) by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 from its 2005 level.[iii] One way to lower it is to increase energy efficiency and reduce energy intensity, the amount of energy used per unit of GDP. In 2005, China’s 11th Five Year Economic Plan included a goal of reducing energy intensity by 20 percent between 2005 and 2010, which they most likely have exceeded, according to forecasts from the Energy Information Administration.[iv] The United States has been reducing its energy intensity for decades, having reduced it by over 40 percent between 1980 and 2008.[v]
China is willing to become more energy efficient as long as it does not hurt its economy. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions requires increasing the cost of fossil fuel-burning technologies through technology modifications that are not yet commercial or through the substitution of more expensive technology, which may also result in making some perfectly good existing technologies obsolete. The extra costs are passed onto consumers through their purchase of goods from manufacturing companies, power plants, and industrial facilities. Firms that cannot handle the increased cost based on their competition, at home and overseas, will either go under or move offshore where energy costs are more affordable. China’s Energy Path
China is building renewable technologies, particularly hydropower and wind power, but it is also building coal-fired and nuclear power plants. In 2009, China built about 13 gigawatts of wind turbines, 3 gigawatts more than the United States, but they also built almost four times more total capacity than the United States, with the other technologies being mainly hydropower and coal. So while wind turbines represented about 55 percent of all of the new capacity built in the United States in 2009, it represented less than 20 percent of China’s new capacity.
The Chinese government has a target of building 300 gigawatts of hydroelectric capacity by 2020. That is seven and a half times more hydroelectric capacity than the United States has currently or expects to have by 2020. China’s Three Gorges Dam project, which many at one time thought was not doable because of its engineering complexity, was completed in 2008 and now China plans to increase the capacity at that facility to 22.4 gigawatts by 2012, an additional 4.2 gigawatts. China also has projects on the Jinsha and Yalong rivers, scheduled to be completed within the next 5 years.
[Comments from JD: China also expanding coal and nuclear power plants. See article for details. Meanwhile, US gets Cap & Tax.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium to Host “Future of Islam in Europe” Int’l Conference
It has been organized by the World Assembly for Islamic Dissemination in cooperation with European Islamic Conference. The conference is expected to play an important role in making the European Union to take the needed measures to promote Muslims’ life in Europe.
The three-day international program will also provide an opportunity for discussing Islamophobia and the future of Muslims in Europe.
It aims to present a true picture of Islam, emphasize values common among Divine religions and investigate ways for realizing peaceful coexistence.
Representatives from the European Union, Europe’s Islamic organizations, Organization of Islamic Conference, and Belgium’s ministries of Justice and the Interior will attend the conference.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
English Defence League is a Bigger Threat Than the BNP
The right has become organised; those of us who believe in a decent progressive society must make a response
Jon Cruddas
A thousand English Defence League supporters protested in Leicester yesterday, the latest in a wave of anti-Muslim activity across the country.
Last week, 40 EDL followers protested for three days outside a KFC restaurant in Blackburn which was trialling halal meat. A fortnight before, 30 EDL followers in Gateshead held an impromptu demonstration outside a police station after six of their friends were arrested for burning the Qur’an; a similar number attacked a leftwing meeting in Newcastle. On the anniversary of 9/11, there were EDL actions in London, Nuneaton, Leeds and Oldham.
The EDL is a much bigger threat than the BNP, consumed by infighting and debt since its crushing defeat in May’s local elections. It also poses the biggest danger to community cohesion in Britain today. Its provocative marches, “flash demos” and pickets are designed to whip up divisions between communities and provoke a violent reaction from young British Muslims.
The group has regional organisers and units emerging in most towns and cities. They bring together a dangerous cocktail of football hooligans, far-right activists and pub racists. Yet there is no national strategy to deal with this group and little understanding of what the EDL is about, its appeal and how it is just one component, albeit a violent one, of a growing cultural, religious and political battle that is emerging across western Europe and is supported by rightwing religious groups in the US.
For those taking to the streets of Leicester, the EDL is providing a new white nationalist identity through which they can understand an increasingly complex and alienating world. In a similar way to how football hooligans once coalesced around support for Ulster loyalism and hatred of the IRA, the followers of the EDL genuinely believe they are “defending” their Britain against the threat of Islam. What makes the EDL much more dangerous is how it reflects a wider political and cultural war. Across western Europe rightwing populist parties are achieving huge electoral success on the same anti-Islam platform. This is being mirrored by the emergence of the Tea Party movement in the US and a religious right that is pouring money into western Europe to fight secular liberalism, which they blame for allowing Islam in through the back door.
There is now increasing chatter among many on the right, including Alan Lake, who is giving guidance to the EDL, of the need to establish a UK version of the Tea Party, which could occupy the space between the Conservatives and the BNP. Only last month a £200-a-head event in London was addressed by some of the organisations backing the Tea Party.
The threat of the EDL and the wider cultural war must be taken seriously. That is why we will soon be establishing a broad-based group to formulate a response. The right has become very organised; it is time for those of us who believe in a decent progressive society to do the same.
Jon Cruddas is the Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham
| — Hat tip: Derius | [Return to headlines] |
Europe Turns Right
AMSTERDAM — Whatever happened to the good Europeans, those nice folks in small northern countries who liked to think of themselves as the world champions of liberty and tolerance?
Of course, many liberal Europeans are still alive and well. But first in Denmark, then in the Netherlands, and now in Sweden, illiberal, populist parties stirring up fear of immigrants — specifically Muslim immigrants — have managed to gain enough power to set, or at least influence, their countries’ political agendas.
These parties are not confined to Scandinavia and the Low Countries, but are part of a global wave of anger against political elites, who are blamed for all of the insecurities that come with global economics, the financial crisis, and living in more ethnically mixed societies. The psychology behind the Tea Party in the United States and the anti-immigrant parties in Europe is similar, even if their policies vary.
Modern European populists don’t wear black shirts, or indulge in street violence. Their leaders are youngish men in sharp suits, who don’t use the language of race, but that of freedom and democracy.
The Dutch Freedom Party (whose only member is its leader, Geert Wilders), the Danish People’s Party, led by Pia Kjaersgaard, and Jimmy Akesson’s Sweden Democrats claim to be the defenders of Western civilization against its main enemy: Islam. They talk about Western liberties, including freedom of speech, but Wilders wants to ban the Quran and the burqa, and a Danish member of parliament has called Islam “a plague upon Europe.”
All three countries may soon be following the Danish model, in which the illiberal populist parties pledge their support without actually governing, thereby gaining power without responsibility. Denmark’s conservative government could not govern without the support of the People’s Party. Sweden’s recently re-elected moderate conservatives will have to rely on the Democrats to form a viable government. And Wilders has already received assurances from the conservative and Christian democratic parties that, in exchange for his support, the burqa will be banned in the Netherlands and immigration curbed.
The influence of these slick new populists, waging their war on Islam, goes well beyond their countries’ borders. Nativism is on the rise all over the Western world, and Wilders, in particular, is a popular speaker at right-wing anti-Muslim gatherings in the US, Britain and Germany.
European populism focuses on Islam and immigration, but it may be mobilizing a wider rage against elites expressed by people who feel unrepresented, or fear being left behind economically. They share a feeling of being dispossessed by foreigners, of losing their sense of national, social or religious belonging. Northern Europe’s political elites, largely social or Christian democrats, have often been dismissive of such fears, and their paternalism and condescension may be why the backlash in those liberal countries has been particularly fierce.
The question is what to do about it. One possible solution is to let populist parties join the government if they get a sufficient number of votes. The idea of a Tea Party candidate becoming US president is alarming, to be sure, but European populists could only be part of coalition governments. True, Hitler’s Nazis took over Germany almost as soon as they were voted into power, but the new European right are not Nazis. They have not used violence, or broken any laws. Not yet. As long as this is so, why not give them real political responsibility? They would then not only have to prove their competence, but also moderate their attitudes.
That is why the Danish model is probably the worst solution, for it requires no governing ability from the populists. As long as Wilders and his European counterparts stay out of government, they have no incentive to temper their illiberal rhetoric and stop stoking up hostility towards ethnic and religious minorities.
That is what happened in the one European country that tried to bring its populists into government — Austria under Wolfgang Schüssel a decade ago. There, the populist Freedom Party splintered, as some opted to moderate their views in order to succeed in government. But the EU’s decision to impose a form of diplomatic limbo on Austria for Schüssel’s decision to include the Freedom Party in his governing coalition may discourage other conservatives from going this route. As a result, mainstream conservatives are more likely to compromise on principles that we have long taken for granted, such as civil equality and religious freedom. Indeed, fearful of the populists’ power, in or out of government, the response from mainstream conservatives — and even some social democrats — to their illiberal views has already been inexcusably soft. There are in fact plenty of ways to fight back, but not with outdated ideologies. Those who see the danger of a culture war with Muslims, or the hostile branding of minorities, should be able to influence opinion with practical arguments. It will no longer do merely to warn against racism, or promote multiculturalism.
Instead, people must be convinced that without controlled immigration — and not just asylum for refugees — Europeans will be worse off. With falling birthrates, immigrants are needed to maintain European prosperity. At the same time, Europe’s economies should be less enmeshed in protective regulations, so that immigrants can find work more easily. Finally, the argument must be made more forcefully that it will be much harder to protect our societies against the revolutionary terrorism of radical Islam without the active support of all law-abiding Muslims. Europe will not be safer under politicians who claim that we are at war with Islam. On the contrary, their influence will make life not only less civilized, but a great deal more dangerous.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Germans Overwhelmingly Against Turkey’s EU Accession
More than two-thirds of the Germany citizens are against Turkey’s EU entry, according to a poll, whose results emerged as Turkish PM Erdogan met Chancellor Merkel in Berlin.
69% of the Germans do not want to see Turkey in the EU, according to a survey of Emnid Institute while only 27% back this idea, reported Die Welt.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived Friday in Germany where together with Angela Merkel he watch the Germany vs. Turkey qualification match for Euro 2012 in Berlin, in the which the Germans won 3:0.
Erdogan and Merkel have held political talks on Saturday during which both called for the integration of the large Turkish community living in Germany.
“It’s about participation in our society based on the foundations of our society. Assimilation is not at all on the agenda,” Merkel said after meeting the Turkish PM.
Erdogan welcomed the statements by President Christian Wulff that Islam is now part of Germany as well as Christianity and Judaism.
“The EU must keep its promises. There can be no slowdown,” Erdogan stated while asking Germany to advocate for the furthering of Turkey’s EU accession negotiations.
Merkel in turn said the outcome of the accession talks was open but pointed out that at present they are stalled by the EU’s insistance that Turkey open its ports and airports to ships and planes from Cyprus.
The Turkish accession negotiations with the EU began five years ago, but are proceeding very slowly. The Cyprus conflict and France’s resistence against the inclusion of Turkey are major problems, Die Welt points out.
The question about Turkey’s EU future caused uproar in Bulgaria over the week as Prime MInister Borisov welcomed Erdogan on Monday saying Bulgaria supported Turkey’s EU prospects.
At the same time, however, nationalist formations raised hue and cry with the VMRO party pressing for referendum on Turkey’s EU membership, while the Ataka party, which is Borisov’s most important information coalition partner in Parliament, threatening to withdraw its support for the ruling party GERB over the declarations for backing Turkish EU membership.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Ireland: Guidelines on ‘Sham Marriages’ Issued Following Intense Lobbying
THE GOVERNMENT has issued new guidelines to marriage registrars to try to halt an increase in suspected “sham marriages” between eastern European women and non-EU nationals.
The move follows intense lobbying by several EU countries, who have raised concerns about the abuse of their citizens in Ireland following “sham marriages” conducted to circumvent Irish immigration laws.
The guidelines introduce new identification requirements for all people getting married, restrictions on the use of interpreters and the number of people who can be admitted to a registrar’s office.
The countries have also warned the marriages are a “security threat” as they could be used by terrorists to gain residency rights in Ireland, which would enable them to travel freely in the EU.
The marriage scams are typically organised by men from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and some African states, who are seeking residency in Ireland. They recruit women from EU states in eastern Europe for marriages, usually offering them up to â‚3,000.
Latvia, which has tracked hundreds of young women coming to Ireland to engage in marriages with non-EU nationals since 2006, formally asked the Government last year to introduce tough measures to combat the scam.
A briefing paper prepared by the Latvian ministry for foreign affairs this year concludes: “In spite of all efforts of the Latvian and other EU states’ embassies in Dublin, the feedback from competent Irish authorities is minimal.”
Officials at the Latvian ministry of foreign affairs, interior ministry and the police told The Irish Times last month they were very frustrated by the slow response of the Government to the problem.
“We started a police investigation in 2006 and contacted the Garda but they kept silent. We called the Irish Embassy in Riga.
“There was an answer that in Ireland a ‘sham marriage’ is not a specific crime,” said Arturs Vaisla, head of the Latvian police’s human trafficking unit.
“By the summer of 2009, the organisers understood that the Irish police could do nothing. They [the Irish police] kept silent like rabbits.
“This was when the organisers started to use force, fraud, rape and mass rape,” said Mr Vaisla, who believes the authorities would have responded faster if Irish women were being abused.
The new guidelines for registrars introduce:
- a requirement for all foreign birth certificates to bear an official stamp or a letter from the country’s embassy attesting to its authenticity.
- interpreters must be from an independent verifiable translation company.
- restrictions on the number of people allowed into a registrar’s office when a couple are giving notice to a marriage.
- if a person’s marital status cannot be determined, the registrar may ask for an official letter from the embassy proving they are free to marry.
- new ID requirements.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
Members of Hamburg Group Linked to European Plot Are Back in Germany
Three members of a jihadist group who left Hamburg, Germany, last year to train in the tribal areas of Pakistan are now back in Germany and living freely, European and German intelligence officials tell CNN. Western intelligence agencies suspect that other members of the group still thought to be in the Afghan/Pakistan border area are involved in an al Qaeda plot to attack European countries, a plot that prompted a U.S. State Department advisory Sunday for U.S. citizens traveling in Europe. German officials stressed that none of those who have returned is suspected of playing a role in the al Qaeda plot. But they believe some are still committed to al Qaeda’s goal of global jihad. Early in 2009, nine men and two women set off from Hamburg for the tribal areas of Pakistan, officials told CNN. The men had been recruited in the city’s Taiba mosque, which lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta once attended. A European counterterrorism official told CNN that before departing, the group talked about an upcoming trip to Spain to mislead those monitoring their communications. The group planned to take different routes to Pakistan — some taking flights connecting through the Gulf states, and some traveling over land through Iran, German investigators told CNN. Once there, they intended to join the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a jihadist group affiliated with al Qaeda. But only eight of the group, including two wives, made it to the Pakistan-Afghan border region, the officials said. German police detained one member of the group — 25-year-old Mohammad Mohammadi, a German of Iranian descent — before he left the country, German intelligence officials told CNN. They said Mohammadi was arrested as he boarded a flight at Frankfurt airport. Mohammadi has not faced any charges. Two others — Alexander Janzen, 30, and Michael Wallinger, 25, German converts to Islam from the former Soviet Union — were arrested soon after arriving in Pakistan, German intelligence officials said. When the duo boarded a flight in Vienna, Austria, security officials discovered jihadist literature in their bags, according to Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, quoting German officials.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Sharia Law Being Used in Germany in Muslims’ Domestic Disputes
A leading law professor has contradicted Chancellor Angela Merkel’s statement that Sharia law was not practiced in Germany, saying a variety of Sharia-based rulings were being made all the time.
“We have been practising Islamic law for years, and that is a good thing,” Hilmar Krüger, professor for foreign private law at Cologne University, told Der Spiegel magazine.
Family and inheritance rulings were often made according to Sharia law, he said, listing a range of examples.
Women who are in polygamous marriages legal in their countries of origin can make claims of their husbands in Germany regardless of the fact that their marriages would not be lawful here. They can claim maintenance from their husbands and a share of an eventual inheritance, said Krüger.
German judges often refer to Sharia, as the Federal Social Court in Kassel did a few years ago when it supported the claim of a second wife for a share of her dead husband’s pension payments, which his first wife wanted to keep all to herself. The judge ruled they should share the pension.
In another case, the Administrative Appeals Court in Koblenz granted the second wife of an Iraqi living in Germany, the right to stay in the country. She had already been married to him and living in Germany for five years, after which the court said it would not be fair to send her to Iraq alone.
A judge in Cologne ruled that an Iranian man should repay his wife’s dowry of 600 gold coins to her after their divorce — referring to the Sharia which is followed in Iran.
Erlangen lawyer and Islam scholar Mathias Rohe told the magazine that the use of laws from various countries was an expression of globalisation. “We use Islamic law just as we use French law,” he said.
While Canada, for example, does not recognise any foreign laws, the German legal structure allows some to be upheld — as long as they do not contradict the constitution.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Clashes Break Out Between EDL and Black and Asian People in Leicester
Violent clashes have broken out between EDL supporters and members of the local black and Asian community.
Large groups of supporters have become involved in skirmishes with youths in the area of Humberstone Road, Leicester.
They ran away from the main protest site in Humberstone Gate East to a nearby main road where they confronted gangs of local youths.
Sporadic fighting broke out between the two sides while riot police sought to maintain control.
Kent Street, in Highfields, is currently cordoned off by police.
Officers have formed a line to stop hundreds of people getting through the cordon.
Riot police are also in Charles Street, where skirmishes were going on at about 4pm.
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UK: DCLG’s Senior Muslim Advisor Mohammad Abdul Aziz Rakes it in
Earlier this year we ran a guest post on Aziz:
Mohammad Abdul Aziz is a Senior Muslim Advisor at DCLG. He is also a honary trustee of East London mosque (ELM) and the London Muslim Centre (LMC), as well as having been an advisor to the MCB. He was formerly an executive committee member of YMO, which is the youth wing of Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) — an Islamist entryist group. After spending years in YMO propagating the teachings of the Islamist ideologueMaulana Mawdudi, Mohammad Aziz resigned to follow a stricter and more conservative form of Islam known as ‘Salafism’. As a student he attended UCL to study Law, grew a lengthy beard and would roll his trousers up over his ankles to conform to his new stricter interpretation of Islam. During his time as a Salafi he influenced a whole generation of young Bangladeshis in East London. He later came under the influence of a senior Jamaati Islami member Khurram Murad who eventually convinced him to once again join entryist Islamism. Mohammad Aziz then went onto represent the MCB at a number of events.
The Daily Telegraph has an article by Douglas Murray of the Centre for Social Cohension which indicates quite how much Aziz is being paid for his faith related services:
Mr Aziz runs an organisation called Faithwise Ltd, the directors of which are himself and his wife. This summer, the Centre for Social Cohesion, of which I am the director, used the Freedom of Information Act to ask the Department for Communities and Local Government about its dealings with Mr Aziz over the previous year (though he had been its adviser since 2007).
What we turned up was extraordinary. Faithwise was retained to provide “strategic consultancy”. Mr Aziz’s organisation worked for 156 days for £113,394 — £725 a day, or at least £175,000 per annum, pro rata, rather more than the £142,500 the PM gets. Mr Aziz said his pay included VAT and operational costs.
While Mr Aziz has been contracted to central government, Faithwise has had significant “Prevent” funding from local government.
In recent years Camden council gave it £106,000 to set up a committee for a proposed new mosque. Just before Mr Aziz started working for the department, Faithwise and the Muslim Council of Britain won a contract from the Crown Prosecution Service to help its staff gain a detailed understanding of Muslim communities.
For Mr Aziz, then, the path of life seems to be strewn with £50 notes. But what did taxpayers get for that cash? It’s hard to be sure. One of our Freedom of Information requests asked what performance metrics were put in place by the department to see that Mr Aziz did his work properly.
The reply showed that it either didn’t understand the meaning of “performance metrics”, or was unwilling to reveal what they were.
This is quite remarkable. If we are to be subverted by Islamist entryists, we shouldn’t have to pay through the nose for the privilege.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Four Arrests During EDL Protest in Leicester
Four people have been arrested during a protest by the English Defence League (EDL) in Leicester.
The EDL is holding a static demonstration and Unite Against Fascism (UAF) is staging a counter-protest on Humberstone Gate East.
Riot police moved in after several fireworks, bottles and coins were thrown in an attempt to break police cordon.
It is the largest police operation in the county for 25 years.
Four people have been detained on suspicion of committing public order offences.
About 2,000 EDL protesters have gathered in the city, with about 1,000 at Humberstone Gate and 600 UAF at the site. Several roads in the area have been closed until 1800 BST.
A policeman has been taken to hospital with a leg injury and two protesters have been treated by paramedics for minor injuries.
‘Lot of anxiety’
A police spokesman said: “The disturbance is within the EDL supporter group, not directed at the counter protesters.”
Nick Cimini, an anti-fascist protester and a shop worker from Derby, said: “We’ve got to show them that racism and fascism are not welcome here.
“If you turn a blind eye, they will come and smack you in the face, particularly ethnic minorities, homosexuals and anyone who does not fit their narrow definition of English.”
Lucy Bethell, 23, a member of the EDL, from Manchester, said: “I’ve come to this great city of Leicester to protest against Islamic extremism.
“I am not a racist. I have Muslim and black friends. There is a big difference between racism and protesting against Islamic extremism.
“I joined the EDL because it made no sense that people defending Englishness were labelled as troublemakers.”
Officers have been stopping and searching people in the city centre. One man has been arrested for drug offences.
Officers from 13 forces are on hand to maintain order in the city.
Ch Supt Rob Nixon said: “There has been a lot of anxiety in the community but in speaking to them over the past few weeks, they know we are taking this seriously and are doing all we can to make sure the event passes off peacefully.”
‘Unity and respect’
Metal barriers have been put up on Humberstone Gate and the windows of several shops have been covered with boards.
Sheila Lock, chief executive of the city council, said: “I’ve been overwhelmed by the reaction of both the public sector and the community.
“Both community leaders and faith leaders have said they will stand for the importance of unity and respect and I believe Leicester will be stronger for this because that’s what people have said to me.”
People have been urged not to go into the city to show opposition to the protest but instead to go to the “We are One Leicester” event on Sunday from 1300 to 1600 BST.
A series of “green-themed peace events” are being held on Humberstone Gate as part of the event on Sunday.
Some street lights will glow green, and the city council has urged people to wear green ribbons and attend the peace events as an alternative to taking part in any demonstrations.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
UK: How Radical Islam Seduced the Academics
A few months ago, I sat in a magnificent Victorian lecture hall at University College London. It was once one of finest centres of intellectual inquiry in Europe, thanks to the efforts of its founder, the sternly anti-clerical philosopher Jeremy Bentham. It did not take me long to realise that fear of clerical fascism had led Bentham’s trembling successors to abandon intellectual inquiry and basic intellectual standards along with it.
I had come along with hundreds of others because, on Christmas Day 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a former UCL student, tried to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear and kill the 278 passengers and crew on Northwest Airlines’ flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. After such a narrow escape from mass murder, I thought that no one could deny that the universities needed to confront campus sectarianism. I reckoned without the limitless capacity for self-delusion of British academe.
By the time UCL organised a public debate on the Abdulmutallab affair, reporters had established that the Nigerian student had lost himself in London’s political netherworld, where the white far left meets the religious far right. As president of UCL Islamic Society, Abdulmutallab had presided over an “antiterror week”, which featured a promotional video of clips of violence, accompanied by hypnotic music. The film-maker had inserted footage of George Galloway saying the west believed Palestinian blood was cheaper than Israeli blood, and Amnesty International’s latest pin-up, Moazzam Begg, alleging the Americans tortured him at Guantánamo Bay.
“When we sat down, they played a video that opened with shots of the Twin Towers after they’d been hit, then moved on to images of mujahideen fighting, firing rockets in Afghanistan,” one member of the audience told the New York Times. “It was quite tense in the theatre, because I think lots of people were shocked by how extreme it was. It seemed to me like it was brainwashing, like they were trying to indoctrinate people.”
The London Times found that one cleric who had lectured the UCL Islamic Society was on record as saying of the Jews (inevitably): “They’re all the same. They’ve monopolised everything: the Holocaust, God, money, interest, usury, the world economy, the media, political institutions… they monopolised tyranny and oppression as well.” Alongside the racism came the concomitant sexism, homophobia and hatred of the western world. Channel 4, for instance, had caught another visiting imam on camera saying that the testimony of women was worth half that of a man. As for gays, he added: “Do you practise homosexuality with men? Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Mohammad Abdul Aziz’s Advice on Islam Has Cost Britain Quite Enough [Comment]
[…]
— From the comments section:
Andrew Boff
Today 01:10 AM
DON’T PANIC — this is Douglas Murray who is to investigative journalism what Dan Brown is to historical research.
[JP note: Worth keeping an eye on Andrew Boff — one of the Tories with the ear of the London mayor, Boris Johnson.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Violence Flares at EDL Protest
Violence broke out and missiles were thrown at police as rival protesters gathered in Leicester for rival demonstrations.
The English Defence League (EDL) and Unite Against Fascism (UAF) were holding protests in Leicester, prompting the city’s largest policing operation in 25 years.
Around 1,000 members from each group were expected to descend on the city, police said, although it was not known exactly how many had turned up.
A smoke bomb was thrown from the EDL protesters into police and crowds of press.
Leicestershire Police said: “Officers are dealing with minor disorder among the EDL supporters on Humberstone Gate East. So far a number of protesters have been detained for possible public order offences.”
Earlier this week, Home Secretary Theresa May authorised a blanket ban on marches in Leicester, but the groups were still permitted to hold static demonstrations in Humberstone Gate East in the city from 2pm to 3.30pm.
The area was shut down by police, with rival groups placed either side of metal barriers.
Police were using Section 14 of the Public Order Act which meant officers could take action against anyone who protests outside that place and time. They were also using stop and search powers, and were supported by the dog unit, mounted unit and East Midlands Air Support Unit.
At one point a policeman was put into a buggy-style ambulance on a stretcher. Some EDL protesters were also treated by police medics, but it is unclear what their injuries were.
A spokeswoman said: “Crowds remain and continue to protest. Four people have been arrested. One officer has been taken to hospital with a leg injury.”
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Arab League Urges US to Call Halt on Israeli Settlements
Arab foreign ministers have given the US another month to persuade Israel to halt settlement activity in the occupied territories — backing the decision by Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to suspend peace talks.
Talks in Libya produced a statement by the Arab League last night urging the Obama administration to carry on working for an extension of Israel’s 10-month settlement freeze, which expired last month, so that the already faltering negotiations can continue.
Abbas had urged ministers of the 22-member league to back his call for more time before pronouncing the talks a failure, as many observers predict they eventually will be.
Qatar’s foreign minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, who chaired the meeting in the coastal town of Sirte, told reporters: “The committee endorses the decision of President Abbas to stop the talks. It urges the American side to pursue efforts to resume the peace process and put it back on the right track, including stopping settlements.”
The league committee will meet again within one month to study alternatives proposed by Abbas.
The effect of the Arab decision is to allow the quest for negotiations to go into extra time despite what had appeared to be an early and potentially terminal crisis over the ever-intractable settlement issue.
Direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks were ceremonially relaunched early last month in Washington and just two working sessions were held in Egypt and Jerusalem before the expiry of the settlement moratorium.
The US has urged Israel to extend it, but the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has refused to do so, arguing that the housing needs of Jewish settlers were simply a matter of “natural growth” and blaming the Palestinians for making an unreasonable demand.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Mira Awad: Israel’s Palestinian Singing Star Caught Between Worlds
For a high-profile singer and actress with a three-album deal and a leading role in a forthcoming Israeli film, Mira Awad is unusually preoccupied with questions of identity.
Tonight she will receive a human rights award from the New Israel Fund at the Bloomsbury Ballroom in London, along with the Israeli-Jewish singing star, Noa. But not everybody will be celebrating back home.
As a Palestinian citizen of Israel, Awad is a member of a minority within the Jewish state that, while equal in the eyes of the law, faces discrimination and challenges from both sides about loyalty and identity. The very reason for the award — her decision to represent Israel with Noa in the 2009 Eurovision Song contest — provoked a storm of controversy.
“Each side wants me to align myself with them,” she says in her small Tel Aviv flat. “Israelis would like me to show alliance with the Israeli state, to prove my loyalty. On the other side, I have to prove my loyalty to the Palestinians who ask if I have forgotten my father was kicked out of his village in 1948.
“I’m tired of being cornered all the time, of having to explain myself. Most of the time I’m making both sides unhappy because I don’t do what they want. But I don’t live in a black-and-white world. This place is very complicated.”
The collaboration between the two artists, which goes back 10 years, has been condemned as much as welcomed. During the 2008-09 three-week war on Gaza, Israel announced that its entry into last year’s Eurovision competition would be sung by Noa and Awad. “I didn’t know if I wanted to represent this country,” says Awad. “I was very angry, [the war] was so devastating.”
A petition against Awad’s participation, organised by Palestinian and Israeli leftists, called on the singer to withdraw. “They said I couldn’t represent a country that was killing my own people, that performing would give a green light to the killing of children in Gaza.”
After much thought, Awad decided to go ahead. Having made coexistence and dialogue the hallmark of her beliefs, she felt that she “didn’t want to walk out and slam the door. You can’t solve anything when each is in his bunker.”
But there was another factor: the recent elevation of right-wing politician Avigdor Lieberman to the government. He had campaigned on the slogan “no loyalty, no citizenship”, in reference to Israel’s Arab population. “He meant me,” says Awad. “Suddenly I felt the importance of nailing my existence to the wall in a way no one could question. I am an Israeli citizen — and I’m here to stay. Eurovision was my way of saying you [Lieberman] are not going to decide who is a citizen of this country. I was here before you.” (Lieberman emigrated to Israel from Moldova in 1978 at the age of 20.)
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
A Glance at Saudi Government-Approved Fatwas
A glance at several official fatwas, or religious rulings, by the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, the body of government-appointed clerics that is the voice of Saudi Arabia’s ultraconservative Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. The fatwas, viewable in Arabic and English at http://www.alifta.net/, are in most cases in response to questions sent in by Saudis seeking advice.
TAKING FLOWERS TO THE SICK: _ “This practice is impermissible as it entails wasting money on non-useful purposes and imitating Allah’s adversaries in this custom.”
[…]
___ RELATIONS WITH NON-MUSLIMS: “A Muslim should not begin greeting the non-Muslims. However, when the Jews, Christians, or others offer Salam (greetings), he should reply “Wa ‘Alaykum” (the same to you) … These are some of the rights the non-Muslims have on Muslims. This also includes the right of being a good neighbor. You must not harm your non-Muslim neighbors. You should give them charity if they are needy.” “It is not permissible for a Muslim to follow the funeral of a Kafir (disbeliever), for this is considered an act of loyalty to them which is Haram (prohibited). However, consoling them is acceptable.” “Relationships based on mutual affection, love and brotherhood between a Muslim and a Kafir are prohibited. It might render a Muslim as a Kafir. There is nothing wrong, however, if the kind of relationship developed between the Muslim and Kafir does not go beyond selling and buying or accepting the Kafir’s invitation to have lawful food with him or accepting a lawful present, provided that no harm is done to the Muslim’s faith.”
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: Ahmadinejad’s Target Audience
By Iranian and Hizbullah accounts, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon next week will be a splendid affair. The man who stole his office and then killed his countrymen to protect his crime will be greeted as a conquering hero. Billboards bidding him welcome and Iranian flags will line the roads from the Beirut airport down to the border with Israel.
Ahmadinejad’s visit to southern Lebanon will be the highlight of his two-day visit. In preparation for his arrival, in the border town of Maroun A-Ras, Hizbullah has built a replica of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem festooned with an Iranian flag. Ahmadinejad is scheduled to stand outside the structure and throw stones at IDF forces patrolling what he has reportedly referred to as “Iran’s border with Israel.”
Many Israelis are rattled by Ahmadinejad’s trip to our neck of the woods. It is unsettling that the man who personifies the Islamist goal of eradicating the Jewish people will be literally standing at our doorstep, provoking us…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesian Playboy Editor Arrested to Serve Sentence
The former editor of Indonesian Playboy, Erwin Arnada, has been arrested on the island of Bali.
Police had been looking for Mr Arnada, who ignored orders to surrender after being sentenced to two years in jail for indecency in August.
He had first been tried in 2007 and cleared of all charges.
Islamist groups forced Indonesian Playboy to close down after only a few issues in 2006.
The Islamist Defenders Front (FPI), a hardline Muslim group in Indonesia, had said Mr Arnada was a “moral terrorist”, and the group criticised the authorities for failing to track him down.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Kidnapped British Aid Worker Killed in Afghanistan in Failed Rescue Mission by U.S. Special Forces
A British aid worker captured in Afghanistan last month has been killed in a failed rescue mission.
Foreign Secretary William Hague confirmed today that Linda Norgrove, 36, was killed by her captors during a raid thought to have been carried out by by U.S. special forces and Afghan troops on Friday night.
The Briton was kidnapped along with three of her Afghan colleagues by armed men in the eastern province of Kunar on September 26.
Ms Norgrove was working for US aid group Development Alternatives Inc (DAI) when the two-car convoy she was travelling in was stopped by the gunmen. Mr Hague said in a statement on Saturday: ‘It is with deep sadness that I must confirm that Linda Norgrove, the British aid worker who had been held hostage in eastern Afghanistan since 26 September, was killed at the hands of her captors in the course of a rescue attempt last night.
‘Working with our Allies we received information about where Linda was being held and we decided that, given the danger she was facing, her best chance of safe release was to act on that information.
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Taleban Zone’s Mineral Riches May Rival Saudi Arabia, Says Pentagon
Afghanistan is sitting on mineral resources worth $1 trillion and could become one of the world’s most important mining centres, the Pentagon announced yesterday, as it tried to drum up foreign investment and wean the country off the opium trade.
A Pentagon memo predicted that the country could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium” — a metal that is a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and mobile phones.
The largest deposits have been uncovered in salt lakes in Ghazni province, eastern Afghanistan, where the Taleban retain a dominant presence. Many of the other mineral deposits are also in Taleban strongholds, presenting the coalition forces and any incoming global mining companies with security headaches.
US and Afghan officials acknowledge that it will take many years to develop a mining industry and in the present security climate international companies are likely to weigh up the risks before launching into an investment programme in a country still politically unstable and suffering from insurgency and corruption.
| [Return to headlines] |
Under the Cover-Up
A bikini ban for a Ramadan event at a public pool should not be taken lightly as it puts fundamental freedoms of Western society on the line.
A COUPLE of weeks ago a report surfaced about families being ordered to cover up before attending a public event to avoid offending Muslims during next year’s Ramadan in August. It involved VCAT approving a bikini ban for a community event to be held at Dandenong Oasis, a municipal pool. Dandenong Council, and pool managers YMCA, successfully sought an exemption from the Equal Opportunity Act to compel “participants aged 10 and over” to “ensure their bodies are covered from waist to knee and the entire torso extending to the upper arms”, and to refrain from wearing “transparent clothing”.
Controversy erupted: tabloid TV lapped it up, talkback callers fulminated, bloggers pontificated, politicians, including Premier John Brumby, were quizzed. Amid the outrage came the predictable and inflammatory warnings that the ruling was evidence of a sinister plan to “Islamise” Australia.
The ruling enforcing what VCAT described as “minimum dress requirements” for Muslims was certainly novel. I’m not aware of any other instance in which the tribunal has made a religious dress code mandatory at a public venue — as opposed to a place of worship — let alone at the local swimming pool. In fact, the ruling was so novel that for some it simply couldn’t sink in.
Perhaps this is why some of the fair-minded people in my orbit initially doubted the story’s veracity. After reluctantly conceding it was indeed true, they still thought the thunderous response over the top. We’re talking about a one-off, two-hour event, they argued. It will be held when the pool is closed to the public and normally used for a women-only swimming session, the attendees of which are almost all Muslims. And hey, aren’t we all covering up to be sun-smart now anyway? (OK, maybe not in the middle of August.) Let’s keep things in perspective, they said.
Well, I agree perspective is crucial. And seen from a wider and deeper perspective, the Dandenong pool episode is neither trivial nor insignificant. It is but one example of human rights laws producing outcomes that restrict rights. It raises tough questions about how far public authorities ought to go in accommodating cultural practices that sit uneasily with mainstream Western values.
And it exposes some disturbing and hypocritical currents in progressive thought, a point best and fittingly made by a Dandenong-based Muslim women’s group, set up to help newly arrived Afghan migrants integrate into Australian society. “I’ve spoken to a lot of women; they don’t want this,” Women’s Better World president Mandy Ahmadi told the Dandenong suburban newspaper, flagging her campaign to overturn the ruling. “Enough is enough … why run from the Taliban to come to this?”
And yet, as Ahmadi’s “enough is enough” phrase might suggest, the VCAT ruling was not the first example of authorities bending to accommodate religious sensibilities at Melbourne’s public pools. Dandenong is not the only municipality to allow gender-segregated swimming. The practice is now almost routine: a development that has unfolded largely under the public radar and therefore attracted scant debate. Viewed against this trend, the VCAT decision is perhaps less of a leap than it first appears.
First some history. When a proposal was floated in 1992 for women-only swimming sessions at Brunswick Baths, all hell broke loose. Preferential access to public facilities is a contentious subject and for good reason. Women-only gyms, gay bars and men’s clubs obviously serve a role in the private sector. And any ethnic or religious group can similarly hire out public facilities for private functions and set whatever rules they fancy.
But municipal services are a different story. Brunswick Council had argued the sessions were needed because many women in the municipality were prohibited, for cultural reasons, from swimming in the presence of men. Councillors also claimed that many other women weren’t comfortable using the baths because of “sexual harassment” or body image issues.
The then Equal Opportunity Board invited submissions on the proposal and received “a mountain of correspondence”. Angry scenes played out at town hall meetings. One outraged ratepayer, David Smith, explained that his wife and daughters had found it surprising that women would want to return to an era of segregation.
An issue also emerged about whether single-sex sessions would fully satisfy Islamic requirements for modesty. Sheikh Fehmi Naji el-Imam of Preston mosque was quoted as saying that a conscientious Muslim woman should not be seen in the company of women who did not observe the dress teaching. In other words, non-Muslim women turning up in skimpy bathers would pose a problem.
Cr Cathy Lanigan, described as “a member of the council’s socialist left majority”, was willing to accommodate Sheikh Fehmi’s concerns. “We think the needs of most [of the Muslim women] will be met if non-Muslim women wear either one-piece bathers or a T-shirt over their bikini tops,” she said.
Interestingly, Lanigan did not dispute a reporter’s suggestion that the swimming proposal was part of a “radical feminist political agenda”. I would have thought bowing to clerical demands on how women of other faiths ought to dress reflected a radical Muslim agenda, if anything. But remember this thread because to some extent we’re still tangled in it.
The board rejected the Brunswick proposal but it proved to be a temporary setback for the cause. A few years later, councils renewed the push for segregated swimming, and they commissioned research into their communities to bolster their case. Most councils also sought the less visible — and more politically palatable — option of holding sessions outside pools’ normal opening hours.
During the past decade or so, VCAT has approved out-of-hours segregated swimming at many councils. I tried to count how many, but tired of the task after hitting double digits.
There’s a degree of fiction here; a legal sleight-of-hand. It presumably would take a brave council, and even braver tribunal, to endorse a “Muslim women only” swim session. But most “women-only” sessions are conducted with Muslim requirements in mind, even if non-Muslims can turn up and even if, as appears to be the case, a small number do. Most councils base their VCAT submissions explicitly around the needs of Muslim women. (One pool in the municipality of Melbourne suspends women-only sessions during Ramadan because so few women attend at that time.) Nearly all these councils also obtain approval to staff the sessions with women only.
The cultural sensitivity goes further still. A spokeswoman for Brimbank City Council, for instance, said their swimming sessions took place in “visually secure surroundings”. In other words, there’s no danger of women being glimpsed in the pool by passers-by. (Such “security” is a key demand of some Muslim communities.) And while every council I contacted denied that dress codes applied during the sessions, some of the responses suggested the issue was murky.
The Brimbank spokeswoman explained that “participants should be dressed appropriately, as is expected of a centre used by children and families”.
The City of Darebin’s acting mayor, Gaetano Greco, was more candid. “We don’t impose a particular dress code,” he said. “However, women attending should be respectful of Islamic beliefs.”
I admit to being uneasy about our public municipalities treading so carefully around religious sensitivities, particularly when doing so under the banner of “women-only” access, with its (radical) feminist overtones.
But there is another side to this issue because at the centre of this debate are real women whose lives have been improved by these sessions. All very well for the likes of me to lecture about the sanctity of our secular public space, being at perfect liberty to roam through it.
In its 2006 application to VCAT for segregated sessions, Brimbank led evidence about the large number of disadvantaged women in the municipality. Many are refugees and recent arrivals from Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan. They tend to be poor and isolated. The council even produced data showing some residents had a lower-than-average life expectancy. Research had indicated swimming was an activity these women were keen to participate in, and that it would bring health and social benefits. But without segregated sessions, the women would never experience the joys of the pool.
It is a powerful argument in support of women-only sessions. The dilemma is a tricky one, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But flowing from this is a reasonable question: namely, what’s next? If the experience overseas is any guide, we’re on a slippery slope.
Britain gives some hint of what’s “next”. Last year, the Telegraph newspaper reported on swimmers being forced to comply with Muslim dress codes during weekly segregated sessions at six public pools. In the most extreme case, Croydon Council in south London instructed on its website that “during special Muslim sessions male costumes must cover the body from the navel to the knee and females must be covered from the neck to the ankles and wrists”. Some British Labour MPs slammed the dress codes as “divisive”.
WITH the Dandenong Oasis ruling — which is what came “next” here — we’re now almost in Britain’s league. Greater Dandenong mayor Jim Memeti defended the ruling as part of a council strategy to promote “greater respect, tolerance and understanding of others”. And yet this strategy is directly contradicted by the demand for “tolerance and understanding” being made of one side only, namely the non-Muslims.
The most noteworthy criticism of VCAT came (again) from a Muslim woman, Sherene Hassan of the Islamic Society of Victoria, who feared the dress code would undermine the purpose of the event in fostering harmony. (The media blow-up suggests that she has already been proved right.) Otherwise, the official defenders of liberty and human rights fluffed it. Liberty Victoria said the curtailing of liberty at the public pool was reasonable because the event was to be held out of hours. Human Rights Commissioner Helen Szoke compared the bikini ban to dress codes in pubs. Really? Banishing thongs in pubs is about preserving decorum. But surely appropriate dress at a swimming pool would be, err, bathers?
A request to cover up, however politely made, is layered with intimate messages; about men lusting and women being lusted over, about the dangerous and vaguely shameful nature of sexuality. Such ideas run counter to the West’s more than 500-year struggle for individual freedom — including both freedom of religion and freedom from religion — and for gender equality. Our public authorities ought to be pushing back hardest when these values are under threat. Yet this is precisely where they’ve been buckling under pressure.
The community workers and VCAT officials who sought and made the Dandenong ruling probably congratulated themselves for their “tolerance”. Possibly there are a number of like-minded people who would happily attend the Ramadan function and dress as a Muslim for the night. And when the party’s over, they could go home and spread the message of tolerance to their daughters, who are, one assumes, free to visit the local pool wearing as little or as much as they wish.
But what about the young Muslim girl who is beginning to question some aspects of her religious heritage, and wants the same room to move as the daughters of these “tolerant” folk? What if her ideas about how a “conscientious” Muslim woman ought to behave differ from those of Sheikh Fehmi? What if she dreams of ditching her burqini for a bikini?
Isn’t there at least an argument that all these publicly funded, respectfully modest and “visually secure” swimming sessions undermine her bid? And what message does the Dandenong ruling send her? Here are the civic institutions of liberal, secular society effectively saying: your cultural practices are so sacrosanct, so unassailable, that even non-Muslims must comply with them.
Shouldn’t they instead be resisting attempts to water down our fundamental human rights, which exist for the benefit of all? We don’t have to go the way of France and force people to break out of their traditions and join us by the democratic poolside. But neither should we be blocking their path to greater autonomy in the name of “tolerance”.
If the Dandenong story made you uncomfortable, trust that instinct. It means the line, to which we’ve been steadily edging closer, has now been crossed.
| — Hat tip: Anne-Kit | [Return to headlines] |
Binyam Mohamed Can Stay in Britain — But He Wants it Kept Secret: Former Detainee Argues Story Amounts to ‘Torture’
Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed tonight lost a legal bid to prevent The Mail on Sunday from revealing that he has been granted permanent residency in Britain.
The controversial move by the former UK asylum seeker came despite his continued involvement in a series of high-profile legal battles with the Government, claiming that Labour Ministers, MI5 and MI6 were complicit in his illegal detention and alleged torture.
Last night lawyers acting for Ethopian-born Mr Mohamed failed to win a High Court injunction preventing the public from knowing that he had been granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK.
The extraordinary case was brought under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which covers torture.
Mr Mohamed’s lawyers claimed that publicising his right to remain in Britain would amount to inhumane and degrading treatment.
Last week an immigration hearing in London ruled Mr Mohamed, 32, could stay in Britain. But the case had been shrouded in secrecy with the Press banned from the proceedings. Funded by legal aid, his lawyers successfully argued that he could use an assumed name during the hearing.
The court granted his high-powered legal team’s submissions despite disquiet about the growing practice of allowing asylum seekers to remain anonymous when they argue that they should be allowed to make the UK their permanent home.
Earlier this year the Supreme Court warned against the now ‘widespread phenomenon’ that had allowed many foreign applicants anonymity in immigration cases, including those involving alleged terrorist activities.
It said: ‘At present, the courts are denying the public information which is relevant to that debate, even though the whole system has been created and operated in their name.’
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: CSU: No Longer Allow Turkish and Arab Immigrants
[Translated by VH]
by Arne Hankel
[October 9, 2010] Germany must concentrate its efforts on the integration of foreigners that already are living in the country. Berlin should no longer allow new migrants from ‘foreign [i.e. unfamiliar — transl] cultures’ such as Turkey and Arab countries.
This says CSU leader Horst Seehofer in an interview with magazine Focus. The CSU is the Bavarian junior partner of the Christian Democrat CDU Chancellor Angela Merkel, who in Berlin rules in a center-right coalition with the FDP.
According to Seehofer it is clear that immigrants from Muslim countries integrate more difficult than foreigners from the EU. Therefore he has “no understanding” for those who advocate further immigration from countries with different cultures .
In Germany, the immigration debate in recent weeks intensified, partly boosted by two dissident politicians [the former banker and SPD member Thilo Sarrazin ((see GoV)) and René Stadtkewitz of Die Freiheit ((see GoV))] are indicated in the media now as “the German Wilders”.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Senior German Politician Calls to Stop Muslim Immigration
A German official on Saturday called to stop Muslim immigration into the country, stirring public controversy.
Horst Seehofer, leader of the Christian Democratic Union Party (CSU), which is a member of the coalition government in Germany, said in an interview to Focus magazine, “It is obvious that immigrants from Turkey and Arab countries face more difficulty integrating into German society than other immigrants.” “In any case,” Seehofer added,” the conclusion is that we don’t need additional immigrants from ‘foreign cultures’.”
The German politician’s remarks rekindled an already heated public discussion over the question of the Muslim minority’s integration in Germany.
During the interview, Seehofer also argued that unemployment benefits should be revoked from immigrants who do not seek employment, arguing that immigrants should be forced to share the basic values of Germany, and have command of the language.
Seehofer’s remarks come after German President Christian Wulff’s speech on the 20th anniversary to the unification of Germany.
Wulff, whose speech carried a particularly reconciliatory tone, said that Islam constituted a part of Germany’s nature, just as Judaism and Christianity have in the past, and will continue to be a part of the nation in the future.
The speech triggered mixed reactions, as Muslim community leaders lauded it, while Christian-rightist elements, including Seehofer, issued fierce criticism.
“I do not understand how the role Christianity has played in Germany can be compared to that of Islam,” Seehofer noted during the interview.
According to the conservative politician, tolerance and openness to other religions, as cemented in the German constitution, do not grant these religions direct influence over the country’s core values.
Seehofer’s remarks angered politicians from across Germany’s political spectrum, leading some politicians to dub him a “radical-rightist populist.”
[…]
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Asylum Seekers Last in the Housing Queue: Britain’s Biggest Council Decides to Put Its Locals First
The largest council in the country is to stop providing homes for asylum seekers — so it can offer the properties to locals.
Birmingham City Council said last night that it had seen a surge in the number of existing residents who found themselves homeless in the aftermath of the economic slump.
Currently, nearly 200 homes are handed to asylum seekers who have been sent to the city while their applications are being processed by the UK Border Agency.
But the council is to cancel its contract with UKBA so the homes can instead be given to those who hail from the city.
Councillor John Lines, Birmingham’s cabinet member for housing, said the decision was ‘in the interests of local people’. He explained that the council expects nearly 8,000 applications for homes this year alone.
‘Over the last year, we have seen a sharp increase in the number of homeless people in Birmingham and we must help the citizens of this city first and foremost,’ he said.
‘With a long waiting list for homes, we really need all our properties for our people in these difficult economic times. I believe the UK Border Agency should find somewhere else to carry out their duties.’
Mr Lines said delays within UKBA meant hundreds of asylum seekers were obtaining British citizenship while they waited for their cases to be decided.
‘When they have been given citizenship the city of Birmingham has to treat them as citizens and give them one of our rare homes,’ he added.
‘I’m putting hundreds of Brummies in bed and breakfast, local people who possibly through no fault of their own are homeless.
‘I couldn’t sit here and allow the situation where Birmingham people have had to tolerate that whilst the border agency has got up to 200 of my homes for people who have come here for political asylum.’
Under the five-year contract, the council provided 190 properties to asylum seekers, but with turnover it meant up to 1,000 staying in the city every year.
The contract — which also involved Wolverhampton, Dudley and Coventry councils — comes to an end in June next year and will not be renewed, Mr Lines said.
Wolverhampton council is also expected to follow suit and stop housing asylum applicants, he added. Birmingham is run by a joint Liberal Democrat and Tory coalition, and is seen as indicating possible policy directions for the Government.
The UK Border Agency’s Regional Director for the Midlands and East of England, Gail Adams, said: ‘We’re disappointed by Birmingham City Council’s decision to withdraw from the West Midlands Consortium.
‘The Consortium’s existing contract will continue until June next year. UKBA will manage the transition to new accommodation in accordance with the terms of the contract.’
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
“No Che Day”
Last year The U.K. Guardian interviewed Oscar-winning actor Benicio del Toro regarding his Cannes-winning his role as Che Guevara in Stephen Soderbergh’s movie “Che.” “Dammit This Guy Is Cool!” was the interview title. “I hear of this guy, and he’s got a cool name, Che Guevara!” says del Toro. “Groovy name, groovy man, groovy politics! So I came across a picture of Che, smiling, in fatigues, I thought, ‘Dammit, this guy is cool-looking!’“
Well, there you have it. In effect, Benicio del Toro, who fulfilled an obvious fantasy by starring as Che Guevara in the four-and-a-half-hour movie he also co-produced, revealed the inspiration (and daunting intellectual exertion) of millions of Che fans.
As a celebrity-hipster fan of Che Guevara, del Toro has plenty of company. Johnny Depp often wears a Che pendant and in a Vibe magazine interview proclaimed his “digging” of Che Guevara. In fact, had del Toro or Depp been born earlier and in Cuba and attempted a rebel lifestyle, their “digging” of Castroite Cuba would have been of a more literal nature. They’d have found themselves chained and digging ditches and mass graves in a prison camp system inspired by the man they “dig.” Had their digging lagged, a “groovy” Communist guard might have shattered their teeth with a “groovy” Czech machine-gun butt, or perhaps slashed their buttocks with some “groovy” Soviet bayonets.
[WARNING: Graphic descriptions.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
One Country and Three Civilizations
The rose-colored glasses of “Multiculturalism” hide the fact that there are three civilizations in our world: postmodern liberal democracies, states of classical political culture and traditional patriarchal communities.
Postmodern liberal democracies
The main value of Western civilization is …the absence of any values. As it passionately abandons its national religious idea, so fervently the other two cultures cultivate their values and originality.
In Europe the ideological divide between these two cultures passes along the border of the former Eastern bloc. Eastern Europe countries, irrespective of their economic successes or level of democratic development, are strikingly different from their neighbors in the West. Because of Hitlerism and communism, repressions and totalitarian ideology they are hardened to senseless slogans, illusions and idealistic dogmatism.
States of classical political culture
Eastern Europe, Russia and the Far East countries derive vital strength from their history, mythology and tradition. They are developed communities but also inseparably tied to their past, and it is not so important whether this connection gets a religious or cultural frame.
The main issue is not politics. It is the cult of national dignity, mistrust of universalist theories and resistance to any trespass on their living space, both geographical and spiritual.
It is impossible to imagine a Ukrainian leader bowing to a middle-eastern sheik, as Obama did, or a Polish prime minister kissing the hand of an African despot, like Silvio Berlusconi.
Hindus will not build a mosque in the place of one of the bloody Muslim terrorist attacks; Serbs don’t feel guilty towards Albanians of Kosovo who deprived them of their relic; Russian intellectuals, actors and academics don’t wish to “understand” the Chechen insurgents, who carried out terrible acts of terrorism in their country.
Have you ever heard about Czechs regretting the transfer of the Sudeten Germans? Are Bulgarians sorry for the exile of 250 thousand Turks in the 50s? Does the Foreign Minister of Croatia call his people to “greater respect of the Serbs’ rights” as David Miliband did regarding the British Muslims?
Such anomalies are possible only in degrading communities, but not among people with normal and healthy national consciousness.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
3 comments:
Devout Muslims at Homeland Security?
Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, swore allegiance to the United States when he accepted his citizenship, and, as he was being sentenced to life in prison, told the judge he didn’t mean it.
This choice little nugget will come back to haunt Islam time and again. Even if most Americans do not comprehend the least import of taqiyya, many of them will twig on what it means to violate a solemn oath.
Not that this will faze the Liberals at all, but it is not their awareness upon which our survival depends.
Who in all America takes their loyalty oath most seriously? Which American institution is respected more than lawyers, politicians and, even, doctors combined?
Curiously enough, it is our military that garners the most public respect and seems to regard its own oath of allegiance in the most solemn manner.
Every time I reflect upon this matter, I do my best to search out any military veterans around me so that I can shake hands and praise them for serving in America's defense.
Germans Overwhelmingly Against Turkey’s EU Accession
And who would know better about what happens when hordes of Turks are let inside the gates?
Caroline Glick: Ahmadinejad’s Target Audience
Ahmadinejad’s visit to southern Lebanon will be the highlight of his two-day visit.
Three letters: I … E … D
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