The Assimilated Muslim

 
Another Dane has joined the blogosphere.

Longtime Gates of Vienna commenter Exile has just started his own blog, On the wing. He’s just getting started; as he says, “Watch this space.”

His first post is about the Democratic Muslims, a group of assimilated Danish Muslims who are trying to counter the propaganda, influence, and violence of the extremist imams.

The group is headed up by a fully integrated muslim, now an MP, called Naser Khader. I admire this guy. He has to live under police protection. He has recently received threats (indirectly) against his life and is presently holding a low profile for his own safety and to spend time with his family.

Naser Khader has his own website, but very little of it is in English. Fortunately, Exile has translated an important part of it:

The ten commandments of Democracy.

1.		We must all separate politics and religion, and we must never place religion above the laws of democracy.
2.		We must all respect that all people have equal rights regardless of sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.
3.		No person must ever incite to hatred, and we must never allow hatred to enter our hearts.
4.		No person must ever use or encourage violence – no matter how frustrated or wronged we feel, or how just our cause.
5.		We must all make use of dialogue - always.
6.		We must all show respect for the freedom of expression, also of those with whom we disagree the most.
7.		No person can claim for themselves or assign to others a place apart, neither as superior persons, as inferior persons or as eternal victims.
8.		We must all treat other people’s national and religious symbols as we wish them to treat ours – flag-burning and graffiti on churches, mosques and synagogues are insults that hinder dialogue and increase the repression of the other party.
9.		We must all mind our manners in public. Public space is not a stage on which to vent one’s aggressions or to spread fear and hate, but should be a forum for visions and arguments, where the best must win support.
10.		We must all stand up for our opponent if he or she is subjected to spiteful treatment.

This is a good framework in which to build a civil society – more power to Naser Khader.

As Exile says,

That this one man is prepared to put his life on the line and live (or die?) with the consequences of his view of democracy makes him a martyr for me.

The one big difference is, that this particular martyr is still alive.

The more Danes who start blogging, the better, since the truth of what’s happening in Scandinavia (and the rest of Europe) will not come our way via the Legacy Media.

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Exile lives in København, aka Copenhagen. I visited the city in the summer of 1967, when I was a teenager. I don’t remember seeing any recognizable Muslims – only Danes, and a scattering of American tourists like myself.

I remember the long warm midsummer evenings, the enchantment of the Tivoli Gardens at night, and arguing with Danish students about the Vietnam war. My brother and I learned two words of Danish: “dva øl” (or something similar), so that we could order beer. I was sixteen, and drinking beer legally! Was this heaven, or what?

I suppose times have changed. Exile, Rune, Henrik, or any other of our Danish readers: can you remember 1967 in København? Is it very different now?