Dhimmitude and Freedom

The period between Christmas and New Year’s Day is traditionally the time to take stock of the year that has just ended while looking ahead to the year that is about to begin.

We’ll be honoring that tradition with here with a couple of articles. The first is a guest-post from Henrik Ræder Clausen of Europe News.

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Dhimmitude and Freedom Status 2007
by Henrik Ræder Clausen

Time for an incomplete roundup of what took place this year, what’s good, what’s bad.

Good	Bad
Blogs are becoming an increasingly important player in challenging the mainstream media for serious analysis.	Various forms of Internet censorship are seen. One method is to tag Islam-critical material as ‘offensive’. Another is to attack the meager income by warning advertisers against having their banners shown on supposed ‘hate sites’. It’s tricky.
Demonstrations in Turkey against Islamization — with huge turnout. They can demonstrate; we in Europe may not.	Turkey censors YouTube, WordPress and whatever else it fancies, and keeps crushing minorities. No firm protests from the EU.
No major terrorist attacks in the non-Islamic world. This is quite interesting. Last year we had the Mumbai bombings, and before that the London, then Madrid bombings. Many significant plots have been foiled, none executed.	Pakistan suffered one of the worst ever. “The Land of the Pure” where they booby-trap babies in order to attack democracy. How low can you go? Security guards saved the life of Benazir Bhutto, but 130 of her supporters found sudden death on that day. Benazir herself succumbed to another suicide attack two months later.
	Many minor terrorist attacks. The counter at TheReligionOfPeace.com passed 10,000 attacks (since September 11th 2001). Worldwide Jihad is in action everywhere Islam meets other cultures.
No major assassinations except for Benazir Bhutto. Every year the icons of the Counterjihad stay alive is a discrete victory against violent Jihad.	Many lesser known figures were assaulted or killed, the latest being a professor in Sweden who was researching the Turkish genocide against the Assyrians. Public outcry as well as the government action over these crimes against minorities have been tepid at best.
Israel is experiencing record economic growth, in spite of serious security expenses and attempts at boycotts in Great Britain etc. More people stand up for Israel in the media now.	Our leaders have still not figured out that supporting the Palestinians is basically a Bad Idea when done without clear conditions. They put pressure on Israel for the simple reason that it has a better chance of working, not for the sake of justice.

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	Hamas takes over Gaza, suspends freedoms.
	Pakistan, “The Land of the Pure”, descends further into chaos. Brutal dictatorship cracks down on brutal Islamists, and on the High Court, with strong from the US government. Money documentably spent on their own purposes, not to fight terrorism.
Demonstrations against Islamization of Europe took place in Brussels, then Marseille, without Muslims cracking violently down on the demonstrators.	The fear that Muslims would make riots in the streets caused the mayor of Brussels to declare the demonstrators ‘criminals’ and had the police crack violently down on them.
Belgium seems to be falling apart. This will have interesting consequences for EU and Europe, both practically and symbolically.	Leaders of the European Union adopted not only the Constitution Treaty, but also an ominous resolution against any kind of ‘extremism’, ‘xenophobia’ etc. Both of these are steps in the direction of the EUCCP, where dissent is not allowed. Cheating over referendums is no small issue.
	The Iranian president speaks at the UN. This is sick. He uses the platform to discreetly promote his vision of Islam ruling the world. Worse.
Our right to talk about Islam and Muhammad is intact. Bringing up the facts, while still considered hate-speech in some contexts, is largely considered legal.
	Arabs with lawyers have turned into a bigger problem than anticipated. The concept is simple: Use the laws of one country to attack an author in another. Given enough billions in the back, it’s doable. This seriously impacts the willingness of publishers to print controversial books.
More focus on doing away with the oil habit. It is becoming clear that this dependency is causing us serious political and economical problems.	‘Global Warming’ jumps in and steals the limelight at a time where we have more urgent tasks at hand. The Nobel Committee disgraces itself by rewarding this with the Peace Prize.
The Counterjihad summit in Brussels with top of the line speakers. Lots of information, much good networking.	Charles Johnson, blogmaster of the large American blog Little Green Footballs, showed its incomprehension of European politics and history by condemning several participants. This strife has been a drain on resources and unity.
	The Arabs have enough money to purchase vital parts of media, financial institutions and other parts of the economical infrastructure. This, combined with ‘Sharia banking’, is a large potential problem.
Denmark got away with comparing the Islamic headscarf to the Nazi swastika. It caused an outcry, but it remained an acceptable point of view to compare the Quran to Mein Kampf.	Great Britain is sinking into dhimmitude. Appeasement is rampant, and the latest move is to declare the use of Union Jack ‘racist’. A much more assertive approach is needed.
Geert Wilders is creating a movie about the Quran. It has caused trouble already, but the bold guy is continuing.	The Netherlands got rid of that troublesome Somali lady who keeps speaking up for women and human rights in face of reactionary religions.
The war in Iraq is showing surprising progress by the end of the year, with Al-Qaeda apparently significantly weakened by lack of spectacular successes decapitating infidels, which causes sponsors to invest elsewhere.	Saudi Arabia still invests heavily in Wahhabi Islam everywhere. This is a subject with implications in just about every country where Muslims live.
Christian assertiveness seems to be rising. The pope stated that we have the right to defend our culture. Rumours of increasing conversions to Christianity in Turkey and Iran would be nice to substantiate.	Mosque construction projects continue apace in many European countries. The depth of this is still unknown to many people. The discovery of terrorist propaganda and military equipment (weapons, explosives) and rabid racism in major mosques has not led to a general moratorium on mosque projects.
	The whole Kosovo thing. While the final decision has met delays, the likely outcome is that a mafia-run statelet will be created soon. This sets a bad example for dissolving nations on basis of religion.
Sarkozy symbolically told the Turks to forget about EU membership. While more moves are needed, this was a good one.	Schengen enlargement. This will create the perfect Inner Market for everything mafioso. And a Perfect Storm for law enforcement.

Summing up, there’s no clear direction. We are facing a lot of challenges, large and small. Interestingly, physical terrorism seems to be waning, while we face a lot of trouble on the less visible institutional level. The weakening of the nation-state and the lack of willingness by our states and by the EU to defend our citizens’ rights are troublesome developments. Our leaders seem to agree to not take the required risks and to sacrifice national interests for the sake of ‘unity’ in the EU and non-offending behaviour towards our oil suppliers.

What can be done?

Lots of things. So many that it’s hard to create a meaningful to-do list of actions. Some items:

Read. All required documentation is readily available from Amazon and other shops. As for Islam proper, the life of Muhammad etc., the whole thing has been researched so extensively that feelings of deja vú easily come up with yet another critical book. One may read a handful of books by Spencer, Trifkovic, Bostom, etc. to get the whole picture, or save a thousand pages of reading by just getting Prophet of Doom. It’s all out there.

Get involved. Our leaders are getting away with their trips because of too little interest and challenge from the general public. This lack of the interest, on the other hand, makes it very easy for just a few individuals to make a difference.

Keep mockin’! As C. S. Lewis said: “The Devil cannot stand being mocked”. This can be done with simple means. Each one may not draw intense media coverage, but some will hit home.

Speak positively of Jesus and Christianity. Jesus was, in contrast with a certain false prophet, a great example for human behaviour. It’s quite uncontroversial to say something good about Jesus, and a little hint that quietly makes people compare with Muhammad should strike deep.

Challenge the EU. This overgrown organisation seriously hampers our possibilities of challenging immigration, Islam and other urgent issues. While I won’t advocate secession from EU (some in Denmark do, however), change is urgently needed, like a reduction to 10-15 % of its current budget. At the moment, the EUCCP is growing in the wrong direction, fast.

Reassert our nationalities by using our flags, requesting border control back, asking that we retain the right to rule our respective countries. Both EU and Islam have a vision of a large unitary state where national identity plays no role in politics, and diversity fades. Diversity is beautiful! While it may hamper multinational companies, it has always been one of Europe’s best resources and barriers against totalitarianism. We’re too unruly, and want to remain so.

Stick to our wallets. An interesting property of Islam is that it tends to be rather unproductive and require lots of monetary support for mosque construction, etc. Money going to support ‘multiculturalism’ will be the worst money ever spent! When politicians try to look good by supporting Palestinians or other violent racists, it’s time to take them to task for it. While it might seem miserly, protecting the principle of private property is effective against totalitarian trends in politics and religion.

Have fun :) All of this stuff can be enjoyable, as one gets to meet lots of interesting people, gets ones worldview challenged a couple times a year, hopefully travelling, and at least have a rich and meaningful life.

What is needed now is not so much grand icons like Robert Spencer or Ayaan Hirsi Ali. What we need is many more people taking the unspectacular tasks of attending public meetings, commenting on blogs, writing to the newspapers, standing up for human rights and national independence. Just bits here, pieces there, based on information and a humanistic attitude, a little or a lot, depending on what’s possible.

Happy New Year and good luck!