Wednesday, March 19, 2008

The Danger of Islamophobia

The Fjordman Report

The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.
For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.



A note from the Baron: Fjordman brought my attention to the newspaper editorial translated below. Our Danish correspondent TB did the initial bulk translation, and Fjordman adjusted it to produce the final result. Fjordman’s insertions are in square brackets.

Notice that Ms. Michelet refers disparagingly to Counterjihad Brussels 2007, a conference that Fjordman and I both attended.

From Dagbladet, Monday March 17th:

Muslim Whore
by Marte Michelet


Islamophobia is the most dangerous ideology of our time and we must be brave enough to call a spade a spade*, Marte Michelet writes.

“If Islam is so wonderful, then how come you walk around [looking like] a whore?” This was what a representative of [the small party] Demokratene in Akershus wrote to me in an email last week. He reacted to the article I had written on Women’s Day regarding how brown [i.e. Fascist, right-wing extremist] forces use rhetoric of gender equality as a pretext for racist attacks on Muslims. Another confused guy, who also gave his full name, wrote: “I hope you burn in hell, you bloody whore [for Muslims]!”

I have earlier received funny hate mails from Norwegian men who first accused me of not seeing how oppressive Muslim men are, and then demanded that I should put on the burka because I am so ugly that I should not be seen during daylight.

These reactions are marginal and extreme, but at the same time they are indicators of the very trend that I tried to warn against on March 8: That many of those who claim to be champions of gender equality and the rights of Muslim women in reality are archetypical racists and sexists. What many people refuse to acknowledge is that we are not just dealing with a few scattered lunatics, but that all right-wing populist parties in Europe have now discovered how convenient it is to swap the mantra “the immigrants steal our jobs” for “the immigrants oppress their women.”

In Norway, there has until now been little debate about this turnaround. There has been remarkably little focus on the growing anti-Muslim movement in general — we didn’t pay attention to it. In contrast, the Swedish organization Expo (where the now deceased writer Stieg Larsson was a driving force) has. Expo keeps an eye on the extreme Right and dedicated the latest issue of their magazine to an analysis of the new Islamophobic political scene in Europe. It does not make for pleasant reading. Expo demonstrates how a broad network of counter-Jihadists made up of academics, bloggers, politicians and activists have united in the fight to “stop the Islamization of Europe.” The core of this network consists of well-known extreme right-wing parties such as the Front National in France, Geert Wilders and his Dutch Freedom party and the Vlaams Belang from Belgium.
- - - - - - - - -
In October last year they arranged a large “Counter-Jihad Conference” in Brussels where people from these parties could meet with like-minded people from Europe, the USA and Israel. One of the participants Expo presents is the Norwegian Jens Tomas Anfindsen, who runs the Islam-critical website honestthinking.org and who is also an earlier advisor to Hege Storhaug’s Human Rights Service (HRS). Now his brother Ole Jørgen Anfindsen works for HRS. Every day he posts Islam-critical texts on the homepage of this organization, with frequent links to questionable “counter-Jihad” websites. The main speaker at last year’s conference in Brussels was the amateur historian Bat Ye’or, the author of the Islamophobic Bible, the book Eurabia, which warns of a Muslim conspiracy against Europe. The book is probably as trustworthy as the anti-Semitic idea of the Jewish conspiracy ZOG, but is highly recommended by HRS.

Storhaug and the brothers Anfindsen are Norway’s most vocal critics of Islam, and many people consider what they do to be sensible and necessary criticism of religion in a good liberal tradition. To point out that they promote an Islamophobic agenda in close cooperation with racist and right-wing populist forces is considered an unjust smear. But it is actually totally unnecessary to associate them with these forces. They do so themselves, quite voluntarily.

The peculiar thing about the Norwegian debate is that they are not criticized for this. It is never demanded that Storhaug & Co should distance themselves from their spiritual friends, from racist forms of criticism of Islam or from violent attacks against Muslims. They do not need to take responsibility for the [mental] climate they participate in creating. In the furious debate on the Internet which followed my article on March 8, not a single person among those who criticized Islam distanced himself from the example I quoted where English racists beat up bypassing “whores for Muslims.”

Of course it is not the case that all criticism of Islam can be dismissed as Islamophobia. But the problem today is not that “Islamophobe!” is being shouted time and again. The problem is that the growing Islamophobia is being ignored. It is essential to understand that this ideology is not only mortally dangerous to the vulnerable Muslim minority in the West. It can provide the basis for extreme right-wing changes of power which we should all have nightmares about. And when we this week pass the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq it is appropriate to remind people how essential Islamophobia has been in justifying a “war on terror” which has made the world a lot more dangerous for us all.

Fjordman’s commentary:

Marte Michelet is the daughter of the Communist writer Jon Michelet, and was until 1998 the leader of the Red Youth, the country’s “revolutionary youth league.” She now writes for Dagbladet, a left-wing pro-Multicultural newspaper which champions sexual liberation, the EU, the UN, radical feminism and mass immigration, also of Muslims. The political editor of Dagbladet, Marie Simonsen, in 2007 advocated that free migration should be considered a universal human right for every human being across the world. The newspaper has for decades aggressively accused those critical of mass immigration of “racism.”

The embarrassing thing about this article, apart from the ideological madness it betrays, is that Ms. Michelet doesn’t even manage to get simple facts straight. The FN from France were not invited to the conference in Brussels. I know. I was there.

She also manages to mix up the two brothers Anfindsen. Jens Tomas Anfindsen works for Rights.no, while Ole Jørgen Anfindsen still writes for HonestThinking.org.

I would advise Michelet to have a look at my essays about Expo. She could also benefit from following some Islam-critical blogs, starting with Jihad Watch, Gates of Vienna, The Brussels Journal and Atlas Shrugs. Maybe some of the readers of GoV can invite her? She can be reached at mmi@dagbladet.no. And please, no impolite or threatening emails, just invite her here.


* The literal translation of the original Norwegian idiom is “put the tail on the pig”, which means roughly “name a bad thing for what it is.”

29 comments:

Unknown said...

And from that just and noble kingdom of Saudi Arabia...

Forget the female race...

Apparently this, is an Islamic princess of exhaulted repute.

Move along....

No IRONY to see here.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/17/wcamel117.xml

. said...

Interesting that Fjordman decides to begin his rebuttal with an ad hominem smear of the authoress' background. Instead of going right to the issues and refuting them, he feels he must attack the arguer, not the argument. This is the sign of someone who doesn't have good arguments to make.

And, while the suggestion that the authoress read Gates of Vienna for serious discussion of the problems posed by Islam in Europe and elsewhere is quite appropriate, pointing anyone to a site like "Atlas Shrugged" will not, IMHO, lead anyone to take the "crusade" against Islam seriously.

Diamed said...

The question must always return to what are your alternatives?

If we do nothing, in just forty years the continent of Europe will be irretrievably Islamic, bearing all the same social dysfunctions as every other Islamic country, and lacking all the grace and ingenuity of Europe, the cradle of modern civilization. If that is considered better than a mass deportation, a civil war, or a pogrom, then fine. If that is better than restricting immigration and depriving the poor unfortunates of their 'human rights' then fine. I just want everyone to say clearly and for the record, that they are okay with the entire continent of Europe to be populated by muslims and that the complete die-off of the native whites is not a problem.

They keep warning about the eventual holocaust following the far-right will bring. Well, I keep warning about the holocaust going on right now by the far left. Europe's white population is slated to drop by 75% by 2100. This is a population loss of hundreds of millions, far exceeding anything the world has EVER seen before. Who speaks for the unborn? She acts as though there's nothing currently wrong and the ONLY threat comes from the far right and otherwise there would be paradise.

Dymphna said...

Gordon--

Exactly where is the ad hominem in Fjordman's listing of the mistakes this writer makes? He does not call her names or impugn her character. He simply lists her background and the place on the political spectrum she represents...

IOW, Gordon, his discussion is on the merits of what she has to say. And when someone makes basic mistakes in their factual declarations, one can feel embarrassed for them.

Calling her an authoress is definitely rude. She's an author, a writer, a polemicist, whatever you choose. But those are gender-neutral designations. Why not "authorette" or bloggeress, or Presidentess, or foreign ministeress?

Vlad Z. said...

Yes but the author(ess) called Baet Ye'or an "amateur historian". Turn about is fair play. How is she an amature? She wrote and published an excelllent book. Does she lack enough advanced degrees to suit Madam? Perhaps she was not able to pursue history in the academy as she is not properly leftist?

Vlad Z. said...

On to the topic at hand: The disapearing European. Isn't this now gone way to far to be reversed or even slowed significantly? With the imposition of EU control the last hope (that perhaps some individual countries could choose another path) has been rendered useless. Now you would have to effect the European Parliment, which is untouchable by design.

I see Europe perhaps continuing to exist in the corners. Poland has a good birth rate and low immigration, Czech Republic seems to be holding out. Switzerland's majority part is anti-immigration.

France, Germany and England have made their beds and will have to sleep in them.

It's more about journalism then politics at this point.

Henrik R Clausen said...

If we do nothing, in just forty years the continent of Europe will be irretrievably Islamic.

As if Islam was somehow hardcoded in the genes...

Christianity has a *lot* going for it - basically it's a good religion with a good founder, and people who look to religions for moral and ethical guiance would do well looking there.

Actually, I believe Islam is a lot more fragile than it pretends to be. Islamic leaders are dependent on abusing the religion as a claim to power, and the more we ridicule this, the better the chance that Islam in Europe will collapse, like a pyramid game of power.

I know the Christians, at least in Denmark, are quite busy teaching immigrants about a decent religion. This is another reason it's imperative to defend our freedom of religion, even for us atheists.

VinceP1974 said...

(I hope this isn't a duplicate)

Henrik: You've totally ignored the demographic factor. Why should anyone consider your opinion informed?

Dymphna said...

Zeke, I missed that little arrow, "amateur." I think Bat would laugh. A large part of the corruption of academia is the need they have to credentialize everyone. And conservative don't bother to try, knowing the eye through that leftist needle is very narrow...and narrow-minded.
_________________

vincep1974: I understand the first sentence of your message to Henrik.

I don't understand at all the need for your second sentence. It adds nothing to your question/argument and it diminishes you, especially considering he was not even replying to you.

Please refrain from egregious slams. This is not a schoolyard but it begins to sound like one and the thread begins to derail.

Why should anyone consider your opinion informed? could have been reframed to "have you considered the demographics?"

I have no argument with the content of your view, but I sure don't want the frame so distorted.

It's *my* space you're making look bad. Kindly desist.

VinceP1974 said...

Sorry Dymphna.

Henrik: I apologize for my disrespectful comment to you.

Dymphna said...

vincep1974--

Having put my foot in my mouth more than once I know how difficult gracious apologies can be. So, *very much* thank you.

BTW, I've been thinking about the demographics issue. Back in the 1970's the Club of Rome was predicting all sorts of famine for the 1990's and it would be caused by over-population.

That has made me leery of predictions re human behavior. It's where I question Mark Steyn's certainty -- though he could turn out right.

Here are the immediate problems/issues I see for us (West):

1. What happens when a viable synthetic replacles oil

2. What happens if the unhinged stock markets really start to crash?

3. How will the (probable) deep recession in the US affect everyone else? For example, the municipal employees all over this country are unionized, as are teachers. The salaries and benefits, very similar to those on the federal level, are beginning to bankrupt American cities. What will that do, in a top-down manner, to the long decades of prosperity and expectations? Will it affect immigration, legal and otherwise?

4.Combine the loony stock market, the union demands on localities for more money, the collapse of the over-priced housing market, plus the imminent retirement of the baby boomers, and we may have meltdown here.

America is such a whale that she will make other nations founder too.

spackle said...

Dymphna --
And God forbid the Chinese call in their marker. It does not bode well. But as I have said in the past, another "Depression" might just be what the doctor ordered to wake folks up to a lot of problems (Islam/immigration) that 8 credit cards and a house full of gadgets seems to make them ignore. Ignorance is bliss until reality forces you to take notice.

VinceP1974 said...

One thing about the Demographics and why I think the Steyn Theory is valid while the Club of Rome was not..

The Club of Rome seems to have just entered in a growth rate and never accounted for the rate plummeting.

I think it's almost impossible to forecast what a growing population is going to do.

However in Steyn's case, he's not speculating on something too far off in the future. he's looking at today. If most of Europe has birth rates around 1.3.. that's fact on the ground... there are no more people than that.. that's all there is.

There's simply no case anywhere in history where a group of people's birth rates have hit such lows and that group surviving. Some nations are going to halve in population in just a few generations because the numbers just aren't there.

And then take into account the influx of Muslim immigrants who are basically taking over the capital cities of Europe and other urban areas.. the young natives are going to leave... wrecking the low birth rate even more.

So many things would have to change in order for the birth rate to go up , plus it will take a few generations for any baby boom to bubble up in the demographic charts to make real gains once the demographic collapse starts (which it has in some countries).

I think that's why i think Mark Steyn is onto something.

I'm no statisicitian of course, so i could be all wrong.

no2liberals said...

The piece Fjordman presents to us, made my eyes glass over, about midway.
Such drivel!
The real danger to the world is, Infidelophobia. The barriers it presents are enormous, and the threats are codified in the pathetic tomes of Ol'Moh.

Dymphna said...

no2liberals:

In the first place, calling someone's work "drivel" is rude. You can disagree with someone's ideas without resorting to uncivil comments. In fact, doing so diminishes your own argument.

In the second place, your substitution of "infidelaphobia" instead of "muslimophobia" is simply turning the coin over to examine the other side.

I don't think this distinction without a difference furthers the argument.

Dymphna said...

spackle --

The Chinese don't want us weakened. It will ruin their economy, which is so dependent on our good health. The riots will be bloody, public, and widespread.

China doesn't worry me yet.

Dymphna said...

inallhonesty--

That was a great piece on the love of camels...wonderfully done understatement. You can read between the lines, hmm?

Afonso Henriques said...

"the example I quoted where English racists beat up bypassing “whores for Muslims.”

People like this should be executed.
Here in Portugal we have a say:

"A girl you shall not beat, not even with the softest flower under the blue sky"

Especially when someone is hit for being of some "ethnics", it is disgusting.

Do the boys want to fight?

Why don't they go haunt muslim males, the ones who are atacking British girls?

Ansar al-Zindiqi said...

Statements such as this should be taken seriously since it is somewhat articulate and also that could very well be the harbinger of things to come from leftwing propagandists who are desperate to get away from losing the global Internet debate over Islam. People such as her are absolutely at odds with reality and in the world of crude Marxists there is a demand for more polemical angles to attack critics of Islam. I consider her speech to be an exploratory probe that will spread out amongst leftists for discussion and how to follow up on it.

Bela said...

Off topic:
In a previous topic I mentioned that Marxists hate to be called as Commies, they invent innocuous sounding code names like Liberal, Progressive, Democrat etc.

Now watch this:

"Fjordman’s commentary:

Marte Michelet is the daughter of the Communist writer Jon Michelet, and was until 1998 the leader of the Red Youth, the country’s “revolutionary youth league.” She now writes for Dagbladet, a left-wing pro-Multicultural newspaper which champions sexual liberation, the EU, the UN, radical feminism and mass immigration, also of Muslims."

To which our resident Bolshevik Comrade answers:

The Poster Formerly Known as Gordon said...

"Interesting that Fjordman decides to begin his rebuttal with an ad hominem smear of the authoress' background."

Stating a simple political fact, namely that anybody is a member of the Commie Party is "AN AD HOMINEM SMEAR".
I had said I spent 35 years with the Bolsheviks and I can recognize them by the smell they reek of.

Bela said...

Let's play with Google, so who is this woman M. Michelet according to Norwegian wikipedia:

"Marte Michelet (født 26. mai 1975) er en norsk journalist. Michelet var leder i Rød Ungdom..."

-OK stop here and let's check out what is the meaning of being leader of Rod Ungdom:

Rød Ungdom
Moderparti Rødt
Ideologi Revolusjonær sosialisme

Marxisme
Opprettelsesår 1963
Leder Mimir Kristjansson (21)
Hovedkontor Oslo
Nettsted www.sosialisme.no

Revolutionary Socialist Leader!
Gordon, she is your heroine, don't be ashamed! Be proud aproletarian, Inshallah!

Profitsbeard said...

Those like Ms. M.M., who do not value the hard fight that their own people waged for their current freedom, will sell their precious birthright for a mess of multicultural delusions about universal "peace" and "justice".

Ignoring history guarantees slavery to its unsuspected cruelty.

She sows her imaginary daisies of tolerance but will reap a bloodthirsty crop of expansionistic Islamic imperialism.

Whose troops will be laughing in her face at the incredible gullibility of all such useful, purblind idiots.

no2liberals said...

Dymphna,
Perhaps there is a misunderstanding. I was referring to the piece by Marchelet as drivel, not Fjordman's, and while I may be rude to Marchelet, she will just have to find a way to get over it.
I have been calling it Infidelphobia for quite some time.

nikolai said...

"Interesting that Fjordman decides to begin his rebuttal with an ad hominem smear of the authoress' background. Instead of going right to the issues and refuting them, he feels he must attack the arguer, not the argument. This is the sign of someone who doesn't have good arguments to make."

Not ad hominem at all. It is the most critical fact of the piece. PC, mass immigration and multi-culturalism are the tools of the new age stealth communist party.

They are using immigration as a tool while blinding themselves to the reality of Islam because it doesn't fit any of their theories.

Kafir_Kelbeh said...

Dymphna -

Sorry, but no2liberals is right...her work is drivel. I could identify her bias immediately, and had a tough time finishing her work. Where were her facts? Dates? Supporting evidence?

I admit I actually laughed out loud when I saw Fjordman's first sentence on her, because I was not surprised one bit by her background.

I must admit I've spent my entire life assessing my beliefs from every angle. I couldn't help it - my brain refused to allow new evidence to go by unevaluated.

This is what makes people like Michelet so frustrating - it appears by her writing that she's done nothing of the sort. If she has, she's determined that she'd rather tow the "Company" line at the expense of her beliefs - so which is worse? Would you rather be considered by others a fool or a liar?

And then there are those who follow these writings wholeheartedly as a result. It's bad enough for yourself to be called a fool or a liar, but then for others to be duped into these ideologies for your benefit? Whether it's financial, political, or emotional, that makes you a snakeoil salesman, in my humble opinion.

I may be a curmudgeon, but at least I can sleep at night. Some, and we have a couple running for President, may need sleeping pills.

Bela said...

The first Communist government (outside Russia)was established in Hungary after WWI and lasted about 100 Days. The leader name is Bela Kun but the chief ideologue, the brain behind it, was George Lukacs.

"György Lukács
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

György Lukács (April 13, 1885 – June 4, 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic. Most scholars consider him to be the founder of the tradition of Western Marxism.
He was born Löwinger György Bernát to a wealthy Jewish family in Budapest.

During the period of the Hungarian Soviet Republic Lukács was a major party worker and a political commissar of the Fifth Division of the Hungarian Red Army. In this capacity he ordered the execution of eight persons in Poroszlo in May 1919, after his division was worsted."

He was the first to suggest that the destruction of bourgeois society must start from within and the religion and family MUST be obliterated first.
Further fracturing the society can be achieved by supporting various anarchist groups, women movement, - the gay and Muslim support were added later.

As you can see all this happened in 1919 and afterward so we are very familiar with this crap.
Can you understand that I know better Soros, Chomsky, Zinn, etc. than the average American who have absolute no idea about events that yet to come.
For you the preacher Wright is a novel issue, isn't?
How about Paul Robson and Angela Davis?

no2liberals said...

bela
Many of us are quite aware of Soros, Chomsky, Paul Robison, and Angela Davis, as well as James Cone.
Jeremiah Wright isn't all that novel, he has been known about for some time, it's only now, during this primary period, that the Lame Stream Media has finally decided to report on it.
Here is an excellent article by a journalist who started reporting on Wright over a year ago, and in turn was called a "race traitor" by the Reverend. In the black community he represents, that is far worse than being a traitor to the nation at large.
Thanks for the info on Lukacs.

Anonymous said...

Great comment, Bela! Couldn't agree with you more.

Kafir_Kelbeh, I think there was a misunderstanding - Dymphna must have thought that no2liberals was referring to Fjordman's essay.

Bela said...

It's sad experience for me that after 30 years since I crossed the minefields to escape the Evil Spirits of Lukacs and Co. now they are catching up with me in America.
Unlike us (Eastern Europeans) who paid the price already, Westerners are not inoculated against the insidious Marxist assault that taking place without much hurdle.

"The Origins of Political Correctness"
Antonio Gramsci in Italy and Georg Lukacs in Hungary. Gramsci said the workers will never see their true class interests, as defined by Marxism, until they are freed from Western culture, and particularly from the Christian religion – that they are blinded by culture and religion to their true class interests. Lukacs, who was considered the most brilliant Marxist theorist since Marx himself, said in 1919, "Who will save us from Western Civilization?" He also theorized that the great obstacle to the creation of a Marxist paradise was the culture: Western civilization itself.

Lukacs gets a chance to put his ideas into practice, because when the home grown Bolshevik Bela Kun government is established in Hungary in 1919, he becomes deputy commissar for culture, and the first thing he did was introduce free-sex education into the Hungarian schools to dilute the family bond as institution.

Felix Weil endows an institute, associated with Frankfurt University, established in 1923, that was originally supposed to be known as the Institute for Marxism. But the people behind it decided at the beginning that it was not to their advantage to be openly identified as Marxist. The last thing Political Correctness wants is for people to figure out it’s a form of Marxism. So instead they decide to name it the Institute for Social Research.

Read the whole essay at:

http://www.academia.org/lectures/lind1.html

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