The Unification of Russian Islam

When discussing the Islamization of the West, France is usually cited as being the worst-off of the Western democracies. It has an estimated Muslim population of 10%, perhaps as high as 15%, and the demographics of the situation — a very low birthrate among the native French, and a baby boom among the Muslim immigrants — do not bode well for the future of France.

If we expand the definition of “the West” a bit, it becomes necessary to add India and Russia to the list of Most Islamized Western Nations. India has the largest, oldest, and most intractable “Islam problem” of any Western democracy. The Muslim minority in India is over 150 million (13+% of the population) and is growing relative to the Hindu population. India lives under the constant threat of terror attack. Its citizens experience deadly bombings and other forms of violent jihad with mind-numbing regularity.

Russia is a special case. Its Muslim population is estimated at 10% to 12%, and its demographic situation is worse than that of France, so that Russian Islam is expected to grow rapidly. If present trends continue, Muslims will comprise a majority of the Russian military within a couple of decades.


However, as analysts often point out, Islam in Russia is different from virtually anywhere else. The most fanatical Osama-loving terrorists and their sympathizers are confined mainly to Chechnya, Dagestan, and other small republics in the southern Caucasus. To the extent that these ethnicities have migrated to Moscow and other parts of Russia proper, the problem of Islamic terror has spread, but its practitioners are still mainly from those Caucasian ethnic groups.

A large part of the Muslim population in Russia is Tatar. The Tatars are a Mongolian ethnicity, and have been in Russia for almost eight hundred years, since the they first conquered the Eastern Slavs. When Ivan the Great threw off the Tatar yoke two and a half centuries later, the Tatar Muslims became subordinate to the Orthodox Christians of Holy Russia, and have retained that status ever since, except for a brief atheist interregnum between 1917 and 1991.

Western analysts have generally regarded the Tatar brand of Islam as mild and innocuous, especially compared with the virulent versions found in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Somalia. Since the Tatars are estimated to number between seven and eight million, or around half of Russia’s Muslim population, this cuts the percentage of “problem” Muslims in half, making the scope of the issue roughly the same as it is in the Netherlands.

Except in the case of the Caucasus, the Legacy Media have consistently downplayed the danger of radical Islam in Russia. An article from April 2007 in The Economist is a case in point. It calls the increase of Russian Islam “a benign growth”, and describes it in glowing terms such as only the MSM can provide. The subhead tells us:

Russia’s fastest-growing religious group is its Muslims. But they are not much like their counterparts in other countries

Below are some further excerpts from the article. I’ve bolded certain names, for reasons that will become apparent later on:

A Dangerous Lie

“The only problem with Islamic fundamentalism are the fundamentals
of Islam.”

In the video below, the prominent atheist activist Sam Harris points out that not all religions are the same. He explains exactly why Islamic fundamentalism is inherently dangerous, especially when compared with the forms of fundamentalism that emerge in other religions:


Hat tip: DF.

The Death-Throes of a Failed Culture

This review of a book written by an Egyptian-German scholar was published last month in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Many thanks to JLH for the translation:

“The Decline of the Islamic World”
by Wolfgang Günter Lerch

A startling analysis from the pen of a Muslim scholar

November 17, 2010

Where does the hate of the Islamic world for the West come from? Is it from the false policy of the Americans, the unfortunate Iraq war, the fighting in Afghanistan, or the unsolved Palestine problem?

The German political scientist Hamed Abdel-Samad, himself a Muslim and from Egypt, has an answer which will not make most Muslims happy: In Islam, he sees a declining culture which is, so to speak, striking out blindly before it dies.

But how can you say that? Is Islam not the only religion that is growing, and not just because of demographic developments? For instance, does it not attract many in Africa who do not (any longer) practice other religions? Isn’t it Islam that gives an impression of aggressive strength which makes many people afraid?

In his book The Decline of the Islamic World: A Prognosis, the author comes to a completely different conclusion. The title was a conscious choice. When he first came to Germany, Abdel-Samad read Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West. At first, the opinions he had brought from home about the “decadent” West were confirmed in this classic of cultural philosophy. Spengler’s elitist, alabaster-like language was hard to understand, so he put the book aside. When he picked it up again later — intellectually better prepared for it — it became clear to him that Spengler’s analysis applied perfectly to the condition of his own Islamic culture.

Abdel-Samad is following a line of criticism of radical Islam already marked out by the Pakistani dissident Ibn Warraq, now living in the West, and/or Abdelwahhab Meddeb, the Tunisian-French author. All in all, though, he is milder than his predecessors, advocates for an Islam without sharia and jihad.

Venezuelan Dictatorship for Dummies

Our South American correspondent BG suggested that we republish the following post by Miguel, the founder of the Venezuelan Resistance blog site The Devil’s Excrement.


Hugo Chavez is building up his Dictatorship one step at a time

December 24, 2010 — from The Devil’s Excrement


(Thanks @inti for sending the cartoon and Rodrigo @sin_mordaza for making it)

Slowly Hugo Chavez is building up his Dictatorship. He has been planning ahead all the time.

Lost the Constitutional referendum? He quickly had himself an Enabling Law that allowed him to legislate in 2008 everything but his own reelection by decree, thus voiding what the “people” had voted for. He dealt with his reelection by holding an illegal referendum that would allow him to run in 2012 and forever if necessary, he had the Supreme Court ready to approve it in an another subtle but illegal decision that denies the very essence of our Constitution and democracy.

Then, in the face of the 2007 referendum defeat, he rearranged electoral districts so that he could win the National Assembly even in defeat. It almost worked, except that he did not cheat enough and lost more popularity than he imagined he would in the intervening two years. In the end, he did not manage to obtain the super majority that would have allowed him to have the Assembly approve him any Bill he wanted.

Thus, he made a three step maneuver, one for the present, one for the immediate future and one for a year and a half from now.

For the present, he had the lame duck National Assembly approve a succession of Bills that change the social landscape in a dramatic fashion, from the Banking Bill, to the Science and Technology Bill, to the Telecom Bill, to the Media Bill, to the University Bill, Chavez legislated precisely what the majority that voted against him did not want. It was undemocratic, unfair and much of it illegal.

Gates of Vienna News Feed 12/25/2010

Christians all over the world were under attack on Christmas Day, mostly by Muslims. Violent episodes occurred in Nigeria, the Philippines, Iraq, and other countries. And Christians weren’t the only religious groups targeted by Muslim bombs — two houses belonging to Shi’ite Muslims were blown up in Baghdad, presumably by Sunni terrorists.

In other news, in 2010 for the first time ever China has matched the number of space launches by the United States — fifteen. Meanwhile, health authorities in Britain warn that another flu epidemic is about to begin, and will include the notorious swine flu strain.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, DF, JD, Nilk, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

With Thankful Heart and Joyful Mind

Merry Christmas to Gates of Vienna readers!

Make sure not to have any happy holidays. In fact, my advice is to ban the word “holidays” from your thoughts this Christmas.

If someone is offended by the dreaded C-word, hand him a cup of thoroughly enhanced eggnog, and all offense will soon be forgotten.

Something to enhance your Christmas listening enjoyment: Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Krauss — The Wexford Carol.


(Hat tip: Prospero)

Our email is still down, so bear with us if you’ve sent a message in the last 24 hours and received no reply.

For our readers Down Under: Happy Boxing Day! Or do you have Boxing Day in Australia?

Gates of Vienna News Feed 12/24/2010

The news feed is sparse tonight for two reasons: (1) Our webmail has been down for five hours or so, and (2) it’s Christmas.

That last post I wrote was not very Christmassy, so I’ll have to try again in the morning. In the meantime: Merry Christmas, everyone!

A chairman of the Ulema Council in Indonesia says that Christmas decorations put up by Indonesian Christians are “excessive and provocative”, and that Christians need to show more restraint to avoid hurting the feelings of Muslims.

In other news, a DMV in the U.S. Virgin Islands has denied a driver’s license to a Muslim woman who refused to remove her veil for a photo. CAIR is on the case.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Gaia, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, JP, McR, Nilk, SF, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

The Emergence of Horizontal Command Structures

We — the major Western powers, led by the United States — have been officially at war for the last nine years. It is not an all-out war, but there has been plenty of shooting and killing, and we have taken thousands of casualties.

Above all, it has been an expensive war. It’s hard to calculate a cost-benefit ratio for it, given that our objectives are so vague. If we were simply seeking conquest, we could measure success by the amount of territory gained, and say that our victory had cost us $50 million per square mile. Or whatever it actually cost.

But our goals are more nebulous. Besides killing hopped-up terrorists, we:

• train police, soldiers, and administrators,
  
• build schools and sewage treatment plants,
  
• repair highways and bridges, and
  
• write sharia-based constitutions.

Given this metastasis of mission, a pragmatic analysis becomes that much more difficult to carry out. Our overall aim is to avert new terror attacks, and since we can’t tell how many such attacks our overseas contingency operations have actually forestalled, there’s no way to tell how many billions of dollars each non-occurrence has cost us.

And who is the enemy?

We have officially decided that we are making war on “violent extremism”. Yes, that’s right: we aim to kill or capture “violent extremists”.

We can all agree that they’re violent — they are, after all, trying to kill us — but what, precisely, are they “extreme” about?

Do they enjoy extreme sports?

Do they eat extremely hot food?

Are they perhaps extreme hedonists?

When pressed, our leaders occasionally acknowledge that something called “Islam” is involved with all the extremism and violence. Or maybe not: Attorney General Eric Holder, when grilled during a congressional hearing, adamantly refused to say the I-word. However, if enough “Allahu akhbars” fill the air during a murderous attack, a military or national security official may sometimes grudgingly admit that “evil people who have distorted and hijacked the great and peaceful religion of Islam” may have been responsible.

Never before in history has such a powerful nation amassed such incredible firepower and spent such great treasure for such amorphous and poorly-defined goals. No wonder we’re still at war nine years later — and being blown up by the “allies” on whom we have lavished so much attention, training, and cash.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
A few days ago I discussed the fact that Western cultural and political leaders have cut themselves off from complete and accurate information about their own societies. By imposing a priori ideological constraints on information, they have foreclosed the possibility of gaining a true understanding of what is happening within their own populace in the face of Islamization.

The corollary to this fact is that the most crucial part of the current information war is being fought in a semi-clandestine fashion at the lowest levels via horizontally-linked distributed networks. Necessity requires that our most dedicated information warriors bypass official channels, since those channels deny the very premises on which the info-war is fought.

A mirror of this process is now underway in the shooting war in South Asia. The United States, in its dedicated effort to kill “violent extremists”, has developed successful techniques for taking out commanders at the highest levels of the Taliban leadership.

According to the standard doctrinal template applied to counterinsurgency operations, this should have damaged the enemy and dramatically impaired his effectiveness. Unfortunately, “cutting off the head of the snake” has not reduced the Taliban’s offensive capabilities as much as the model would predict. The disappearance of the vertical lines of command has resulted in the emergence of horizontal command structures. Although these groups lack a centralized command, they are able to mount simultaneous attacks over a wide area.

Before I suggest why this might be happening, take a look at this article from AKI:

Le Manifeste de Paris

Last week’s rally in Paris resulted in a manifesto of purpose crafted by the alliance of groups that took part in the event. The document has been published in several languages at Riposte Laïque. The English version is below.


The Appeal of Paris — December 18th, 2010
December 23 2010

The ‘Islamization’ of Europe Conference, which took place in Paris, on the 18th December 2010, is a founding act. For the first time, orators coming from the whole of Europe shared one same platform to denounce the Islamic conquest at work on our continent. At the end of the Conference, the thirty-two parties, organizations, associations, websites and news blogs which supported this initiative agreed, beyond their different political orientations, on a common manifesto:

We rise up against the aggressive proselytism of Islam, against the occupation of public space by muslim prayers, against the financing of mosques with public funds, against the development of the halal food market, against the fate reserved by Islam to women, as opposed to our principle of equality between women and men and, in general, against any advance of Islam on the soil of Europe,

Faced with the ‘Islamization’ of Europe, we reaffirm our unfailing attachment to our multimillenial civilization, its values and traditions,

We invite all the peoples of Europe and the world to preserve the future of our children and grand-children, by rising up against any attempt to replace the laws of their countries — a legacy of their history and a guarantee of social balance — by rules imported from abroad and incompatible with them,

We invite them to defend the European citizens’ freedom of speech, the free debate and free vote on this subject matter,

Gates of Vienna News Feed 12/23/2010

The California flood-and-mudslide stories were the big news for me today. I spent a couple of hours browsing news articles and videos, but I forgot to save any of the links. Check Fox or CNN to see some amazing photos and footage.

Parcel bombs exploded at two embassies in Rome today. Anarchists (or possibly Greens) are alleged to be responsible for the exploding packages, which injured two people at the Swiss and Chilean embassies.

In other news, the Chinese have taken exception to criticism by the Vatican of the state-sponsored Chinese Catholic Church, calling such interference “imprudent” and “dangerous”. At the same time China says that it is willing to protect its investment in Europe by bailing out bankrupt EU nations if the current crisis causes more failures.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, DF, Esther, Insubria, JD, LL, McR, Salome, Steen, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Jihad Bells

A special Christmas message from the inimitable folks at Latma:


Hat tip: Shirl in Oz.

In Demand Everywhere

Someome at Politically Incorrect has noticed the extensive media coverage that Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff has garnered over the last few weeks, culminating in the article published yesterday in Wienerin.

Many thanks to JLH for translating this brief piece from PI:

The New Figurehead of Islam Critics

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff really ought to be downright grateful to Veronika Dolna, the editor of the leftist Viennese magazine NEWS. Since Dolna covertly attended one of the 39-year old’s seminars in November, 2009, and subsequently entered a complaint of “hate crime” against the daughter of a former diplomat, for her everything has been on an upward trend. Berlin, Washington, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Jerusalem, Paris — since then, she has been in demand everywhere as a speaker. And to cap it all off, now a multi-page report on the self-declared feminist in the Austrian women’s magazine, WIENERIN. May it continue like this in 2011!

From our point of view, of course, Elisabeth’s heightened media profile has been a real boost for the cause. It has catapulted a well-informed critic of sharia into a prominent position as a spokeswoman for the movement, where she can utilize her eloquence in two languages to bring our message to a wider audience.

Not quite the result that NEWS expected. Now Veronika Dolna gets to learn the meaning of the phrase “unintended consequences”. Can anybody tell us what that is in German?


Previous posts about the hate speech case against Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff:

Human Rights Everywhere!

We posted earlier this month about the Australian Human Rights Commission and its fight against “cyber-racism” — that is, content posted on the internet that offends members of minority groups.

As a follow-up, we then reported on an enquiry made by our New Zealand correspondent Aucklander with the Australian Human Rights Commission concerning its policies on cyber-sexism and cyber-homophobia.

In the intervening weeks since then, Aucklander has exchanged a series of emails with human rights officers in Sydney. Concerning his encounter with Australian bureaucracy, Aucklander has this to say:

I think I have a usable answer at last from the Australian HRC, via two replies. My basic concern was whether the rules will only apply to real racism or also to criticism of religion. They seem to have answered that ‘no, it’s still ok to criticise religion’ — or at least that’s how I read it. But I understand your point about the UN moving towards making blasphemy illegal worldwide. A definite threat to be noted.

You’ll see that they didn’t even try to answer my last question:

5.

I realise that this is a fairly new area for the HRC, and also that actual threats against any people should not be legal. So how does the HRC view an incitement to hit disobedient wives, as contained in one religious doctrine? Why is that legal?

No response, so it seems that inciting domestic violence in a religious text is OK with the Australian HRC. Perhaps one of the Aussie GoV members could pursue this further. I might take it up here in New Zealand.

To recap the original post, this is the initial email Aucklander sent to the Australian Human Rights Commission:

From: X
Sent: Friday, 3 December 2010 2:02 PM
To: New Complaints
Subject: Cyber-sexism and cyber-homophobia

Dear HR Australia

I am interested in how you deal with cyber-sexism. Since you are actively against cyber-racism, why are you not also be dealing with cyber-sexism and cyber-homophobia? As a feminist and supporter of homosexual friends I am deeply offended by many websites, including religious ideologies that downgrade women and threaten homosexuals.

While I am opposed to racism (in fact there is absolutely no scientific proof that different ‘races’ exist), there has been a tendency lately to claim that opposition to certain religious doctrines is ‘racist’. It is clearly not, as religion is a doctrine and not a genetic trait.

Please give me your definition of ‘race’ and of ‘racism’, and assure me that religious doctrines are absolutely not considered racial characteristics, so that if someone opposes a religious doctrine or practice online, they will not be committing ‘race crimes’ in your books.

If you are wondering why I am asking this question from New Zealand: I have gay friends in Australia and am concerned that under your laws, if they dared to comment online on anti-gay religious doctrines, they could be deemed offensive and ‘racist’! The same could apply to women opposing sexist religious doctrines publically online.

As a secularist, I am also interested to know how you ensure that enforcing people’s human rights regarding religion does not interfere with others’ rights to secularism and atheism? If it is someone’s right to state that non-believers are somehow inferior (easily found in many religious texts and frequently stated publically, online, by believers), would an atheist have the same right to call a believer inferior? If not, why not?

Many Regards,

X
Auckland, NZ

He received this response:

From: Complaints Info
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2010 3:18 PM
To: X
Subject: RE: Cyber-sexism and cyber-homophobia [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Dear X,

I refer to your email enquiry sent on 3 December 2010, which raises concerns about “cyber-sexism”, “cyber-homophobia” and religious doctrines.

I note that you say that you are offended by many websites, including religious ideologies that downgrade women and threaten homosexuals. You raise various questions relating to the racial discrimination and the relationship between racial discrimination and religious doctrines. Please be aware that in terms of your questions I am only able to advise you on our jurisdiction.

The Australian Human Rights Commission has a specific jurisdiction when it comes to the issues it can deal with. Its role is to consider claims of discrimination on the basis of a person’s race, sex, age or disability within specific areas of public life. The Commission can also consider claims of human rights breaches relating to one of the international covenants scheduled to the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986, which can only be made against the Australian government. We can also look at claims of alleged discrimination on the basis of a person’s religion, sexual preference, criminal record, political opinion, social origin or trade union activity in employment.

Religious discrimination and Sexual preference discrimination

Under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 (AHRCA) discrimination on the grounds of sexual preference and religious beliefs are only covered in the area of employment. Further information about freedom of religion or belief can be found on our website at www.humanrights.gov.au/human_rights/religion/index.html.

The Commission has put out some publications that may be relevant to your concerns. You can access this information at the following link:

Violent Jihad Comes to Sweden

The Swedish security police (Säpo) recently released a report on “violence-approving Islamist extremism”, which is the literal English translation of the phrase used by the authors of the report. Våldsbejakande means supportive of violence, but not violent in itself — talk about not treading on any Muslim toes!

The idea that “violence-approving” jihadis could be in any meaningful way distinct from “violent” jihadis is a quintessentially Swedish way of parsing reality. It’s designed to lull the Swedish mind into its accustomed complacency — which was so rudely disturbed by an exploding man in downtown Stockholm on December 11th, not long after the report was issued.

Was Taimour Abdulwahab Al-Abdaly actually violent? Or only an approver of violence? We’ll have to let the Jesuitical minds at Säpo sort that one out.

A comprehensive critique of the Säpo report by Reinhard of ICLA was recently published at Politiskt Inkorrekt. Many thanks to Cavatus for the translation:

Säpo’s (the Swedish security police) report on violent Islamist extremism in Sweden [pdf] is in many ways meritorious, but suffers from many serious deficiencies: it does not deal with the Islamism that is not supportive of violence, and it does not mention the radical Islamists’ ideology in its discussion. In the following I intend to summarize the report, emphasize the most relevant aspects and state something about its deficiencies. Since the report is available on the Internet, I will avoid page references; the quotations are easy to find by searching in the PDF-file.

Säpo establishes that there are a number of networks in Sweden that actively spread radical (what Säpo calls “violence-accepting”) Islamic ideology. The ideology is treated as uniform by Säpo (it is shared by “most of them”). The ideology has very specific targets: part of their propaganda is against “foreign troops in Muslim countries”, part is against “regimes that are regarded by the networks as corrupt and don’t uphold the interpretation of Islam that the networks regard as the only truth”, and part is also against caricaturists.

Here we at once see that radical Islamism is rooted in the religion of Islam. Radical Islamism’s attitude towards Islam’s orthodoxy — whether it diverges from established Islamic theology and jurisprudence — is something that Säpo is interested in, and after having read the report I am unfortunately forced to admit that they are not capable of doing that analysis. Säpo protects itself in an elegant way against possible accusations of taking sides in the intra-Islamic debate — the wording “the interpretations of Islam that the networks regard as the only truth” protects Säpo against unserious criticism. But at the same time it makes them unable to understand fully the incentives and the prime movers of the suicide bomber.

The question to ask is the following: why is it a problem for radical Islamists (or more easily expressed, Jihadists) that there are non-Muslim troops in Muslim countries? Because Jihad, which means holy war, both in the sense of invading non-Muslim countries and imposing Sharia law (which is not the same thing as converting all people into Islam) — the offensive Jihad — and defending Muslim countries against attacks — the defensive Jihad — considers only whether the countries to be defended are Muslim. According to Sharia, (Islam’s jurisprudence; Jihad is a part of Sharia) it does not matter that Afghanistan and Iraq were governed by tyrants that tormented their own inhabitants and, in the case of Saddam Hussein, it does not matter that he initiated aggression against his neighbours. It does not matter that the Taliban oppressed the people — it was still not legitimate for non-Muslim countries to invade Afghanistan, since the doctrine of Jihad expressly opposes this. The war that is waged today by the Western Powers is usually seen a humanitarian intervention, but this concept completely lacks meaning for Muslims who take the doctrine of Jihad seriously. Non-Muslims do not have the right to invade Muslim countries, no matter how badly the latter behave, while Muslims has an imperative, collective obligation to invade non-Muslim countries. This is what is behind the violent Islamic extremists’ focus on non-Muslim invasions of Muslim countries — they know what Sharia says about the matter, and apply Sharia, Islamic law (which is by definition not radical or extreme; Sharia is Islam’s orthopraxy, and if Sharia is radical, it means that Islam in itself is radical).