Danish MP and moderate muslim Naser Khader, (who you would see on the PBS special Islam Vs. Islamists if the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would release it) has been attracting attention lately. Blogger Exile took note of a speech in which Khader called for the need for a  Muhammad cartoon incident in America. GOV, who always has the pulse of all things Danish, also has noted Khader’s message and its importance.

What struck me was Mr. Khader’s statement that it was the cartoon controversy which spurred Danish democratic muslims to action. In absurdity lies truth, I suppose. Time and again we have seen that the islamists will always, without fail, over-react. If the incident might call for a polite discussion between neighbors, its a lawsuit. If a well written op-ed would suffice, its the threat (or practice) of decapitation.

This is of course why the political correctness crowd in general, and the grievance industry, in particular, is a massive threat to the counter-jihad movement. A simple search reveals the number of times the word “offensive” appears on the Council of American-Islamic Relations Website. The word “Hate Crime” is even more common.

This reminds me of an incident in Tennessee, which was related to me by Christine this afternooon, which occurred a while ago, and which she blogged about here. Bacon is not, cannot, be a hate crime. Neither can cartoons, or the use of ACTUAL Koran quotes. Free speech, and its consquences, are our very best weapon. The Islamists know this, and are coming for it.

The wider the gulf between a rational response to a provocation, and the Islamist response to a provocation, the more people awake to the simple fact, that a large number of people out there subscribe to a violent, intolerant and anachronistic ideology. And, perhaps as Mr. Khader suggests, such provocations can also awaken a large number of otherwise passive muslim immigrants to point out that it is time for a real “islamic revolution.” As Exile says of Khader:

Could it be that this relatively quiet man, in his modest way, can start the revolution that Islam is so seriously in need of? Someone has to. If it should be him, then I can only applaud him and continue to support him.

Anyone else would recieve my blessing too.

To that I would add not only “Anyone” else, but ”Everyone” else.

Baron beat the nightly news here, in more ways that one. Reprinted in full, from Gates of Vienna! Go Team 910.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

“Gilani Lane Is Insane!”
by Baron Bodissey

This evening just after dusk the Christian Action Network organized a demonstration at Charlotte County Courthouse.

They were protesting against the official county approval of a road named for a known terrorist, Sheik Gilani, the founder of the Muslims of America and Jamaat ul-Fuqra.
The event was scheduled just before a Board of Supervisors meeting.

I got there early while it was still light so I could take some photos of the area. Charlotte Courthouse is one of the more beautiful locations in the Commonwealth of Virginia, scenic and historic — the home of Patrick Henry — without being overrun with boutiques and tack shops like a lot of other “old towns” are.

While I was waiting I chatted with a local businesswoman, who said she was appalled by the name “Sheikh Gilani Lane”.

“I’ve got a son in the Navy,” she said. “That’s not what he’s fighting for.”

She wondered why the FBI couldn’t do something about the Red House compound. I reminded her that this is a free country, and that unless someone there did something overtly illegal, there wasn’t much that law enforcement could do. She gave a reluctant assent, but added, “You know, this country is really getting kind of screwed up.”

The Christian Action people gathered at Mimmo’s Restaurant just down the road from the Courthouse to eat and prepare for the demonstration.

The media showed up in full force, and Martin was interviewed a couple of times in front of the restaurant before he could eat his dinner.

The demonstration was not at the Courthouse itself, but just down the road in front of the County Administration Building, since that is where the Board of Supervisors meets.

I got there early, while the TV crews were setting up, and spent some time talking to the counter-demonstrators who were already there in anticipation of the arrival of the Christian Action Network.

The TV people took footage of them while they were waiting.

One lady carried a sign that read, “Have we made our neighbor welcome? Christ says that by this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love for another.”

She told me that she was feeling like a young picketer. I remarked that she didn’t really look like a hippie. She replied that she thought there was a little hippie in her.

__________________________

The state police were there to make sure no one got out of hand (no one did).

I chatted for a while with a representative of the state police.

When I told him I was a blogger, he asked me which one.

“Gates of Vienna,” I replied.

“You’re with the 910 Group, right?”

“Well… yes, I’m associated with them.”

It turns out that he is a regular Gates of Vienna reader, and has been keeping up with the Jamaat ul-Fuqra news. He had even read today’s post.

Hooray for the state police!

Christine from the 910 Group was one of the demonstrators, and went over to introduce herself to him.

“Oh, so you’re Christine!” he said. “I know you.”

I had a long discussion with a local Presbyterian minister, whose sign displayed a passage from Ephesians about the neccessity for giving up anger and focusing on love.

He felt that the protest was doing injustice to their peaceful Muslim neighbors. He knows people in the compound; he’s met with them, eaten meals with them, and coached their children. They’re peaceful, decent, people, and the demonstrators have no right to judge them when they don’t even know them.

When I confronted him with Sheikh Gilani’s own words, he said that his friends in the compound think the Sheikh was being taken out of context.

Well, consider this, from a recruitment video:

In a videotape obtained by The Washington Times, Sheik Gilani calls on American Muslims to help him form an “international organization.”

“We have reached out and prepared them to defend themselves in a highly specialized training in guerrilla warfare,” he says, referring to two camouflage-clad black men flanking him.

“Life is becoming more hard for Muslims. Therefore, every man and woman will learn to defend himself or herself.”

Must have been some context.

___________________

The demonstrators arrived, led by a CAN member dressed as the Statue of Liberty, with another young man leading the chants with a bullhorn.

“Sheikh Gilani out of the county!” and “Gilani Lane is insane!” are two that I remember.

The demonstrators circled the complex several times while the media milled around getting video footage and interviewing people.

Another 910 Group member was interviewed at length while I eavesdropped, and she did an excellent job, speaking very clearly and articulately about the issue of Jamaat ul-Fuqra. You may have seen her if you were watching the 11 pm news on ABC13 out of Lynchburg.

At least one of the demonstrators was a local Charlotte County resident, a six-year veteran of the military who said that he had to come and speak out against the naming of the road.

A final gathering in front of the building, a big round of applause, and then the demonstration broke up.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Board of Supervisors knew that CAN was coming, and the had hastily rearranged their schedule to meet for a moment at 7:00 pm, adjourn, and reconvene a little later at a local school, where no demonstration would be allowed.

I assume they thought that by this stratagem they could duck all the adverse publicity. But by absenting themselves so thoroughly from the scene, they made sure that Martin’s folks and the 910 Group people got most of the talking-head time on the news, without a single official representative of Charlotte County on camera.

I’m not a media-savvy person, but given the indefensible case they have to try to make, this doesn’t seem to have been a very wise move on their part.

The following is a translation by a feature article from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and is crossposted here and on Gates of Vienna as well as on The New Zonka Blog, I have used the Baron’s corrected and improved version of my translation here.

Naïvists and Human Nature

Kai Sørlander, Author and Philosopher

When democracy let the optimists succeed in classifying the pessimists as xenophobes and Islamophobes, it embarked upon a catastrophic course. And the media who have aided to maintain the illusion bear a particular part of the blame, says the writer.

Political discussions often take place on two levels: a substantial level where the parties have differing opinions about some concrete issue, and a secondary level, where the aim is to get your political opponent classified in a way that implies that you yourself are right on the substantial level.

If you can affix your own labels on your opponent, then you can make it impossible for him to voice his substantial arguments. It is a tactical game which is part of the democratic game.

This game can thus also be found in the political disagreement about the last thirty to forty years of immigration policy.

This was a case in which anyone should have known in advance that there would be serious consequences for Danish society, and thus it should have been discussed openly and in all of its aspects. All parties should have had the opportunity to be as clear as possible in presenting their opinions of how many immigrants from relatively distant cultures they thought that Danish society could manage to integrate. And then they should have been required to argue their position, why they believed that their answer was the right one. But at the same time they should also have recognized that there would be a major uncertainty about the answer. Nobody could be sure that his own answer would be superior in the long run.

The optimists should thus also have recognized that there could be a certain amount of rationality in the pessimism, however that recognition was held back. The optimists avoided entering into a serious debate with the pessimists.

Instead they made being a pessimist equivalent to being xenophobic. Those who didn’t share the optimists’ belief in how many immigrants it was possible to integrate into society were classified as xenophobes.

In this the optimists were the ones who ruined the debate, and were greatly helped along the way by the media. Instead of entering an equal debate with the pessimists, they rendered them morally unworthy.

The same rhetorical game also marks a more particular aspect of the political discussion about the conditions for immigration. As an consequence of the fact that many of the immigrants that came into the country in that period were Muslims, it was rational to consider the issue of Islam and democracy. Then one began by recognising that democracy as a rational political order requires a realisation that the laws are made by humans and have to be approved through a parliamentary decision.

Thus one has to recognize that a democratic order more easily integrates a religion that itself recognizes that the laws of society have to be made by humans, than a religion that wants to decide itself how the laws should be. And isn’t that the main difference between Christianity and Islam? Isn’t that exactly the explanation why democracy has been able to develop within Christianity but not within Islam?

Who knows what is right? Under all circumstances we are talking about real problems, which for the sake of democracy there was every reason to seriously discuss in connection with Muslim immigration. But was it done?

No, here also the optimists, who couldn’t see any problem, skipped over the pessimists. Instead of an equal debate, the pessimists were labelled Islamophobes. They suffered from a phobia; they were sick; there was no reason to debate with them.

In this way the optimists succeeded for a long time in creating a climate that made it impossible to take seriously the problems that resulted from liberal immigration policy. Because even to take them seriously was labelled as an expression of xenophobia and Islamophobia.

The consequence then was that nothing was done, and the problems were allowed to grow. Therefore they have also become harder to ignore. And thus it is not quite as easy for the optimists to block serious debate about immigration policy by calling their pessimistic opponents xenophobes and Islamophobes.

On the contrary, the pessimists can now begin to win in the media for their interpretation of the consequences of the immigration policy. And what are the pessimists doing? They naturally uses the same rhetorical trick as the optimists.

They label the opponent in such a way that it is implied that they are mistaken. This can be seen in the title of Karen Jespersen’s and Ralf Pittelkow’s recently published book Islamists and Naïvists. Here the optimists are labelled as naïve, gullible, simple-minded, or even foolishly kind.

Thus the scenario is in place.

In the center is the question itself about the consequences of the liberal immigration policy, surrounded by the two parties, which look with their differing seriousness on these consequences, and which are characterizing each other as xenophobes and naïve. Who is right in this conflict? Are the optimists right that the pessimists are xenophobic? Or are the pessimists right that the optimists are naïve?

A complete answer to that question can naturally only be given once history has taken its turn, and we can’t wait that long when we have to make a political decision. But the answer also requires that we have our concepts in place, and that is something that we don’t need to wait for.

We can get our concepts in place immediately. And on the face of it there is one thing that sticks out: the obvious asymmetry between the way that optimists and pessimists are labelling each other. Where the optimists make the pessimists xenophobic and thus evil, the pessimists only makes the optimists naïve. The demonizing is one-way.

What is the cause of this asymmetry in the parties’ judgment of each other?

The answer must be found the different views of human nature. When the optimists doesn’t see any serious problem arising from the immigration of people from alien cultures, it is because they assume that man by nature is good, and that it is culture that makes people narrow-minded and self centered. In that light multiculturalism is positive, because it sets everybody free from their primary culture and gives them the possibility to live out their natural goodness towards one another. Thus the deconstruction of the prevalent culture is a beneficial project, and those who resist it are evil. They are demonized as xenophobic.

When the pessimists looks quite differently at the consequences of the immigration of people from alien cultures, it is because they have another view of the nature of man. To them man by nature isn’t good, he is combative, and has the potential for both good and evil. And cultural education is necessary to give man the means to interact in such ways that he can suppress his combativeness and live in peace with those in his society.

It is this difference between the optimists and the pessimists in their views of the nature of man that results in the demonization of the pessimists and not the other way around.

For the optimists the pessimists appear dangerous, because they do not believe enough in the goodness of man. For the pessimists the optimists appear dangerous because they believe too much in the goodness of man. And when the optimists then make the act of believing in the goodness of man a requirement for being good, there follows the demonization of the pessimists.

But who is right? Which view on the nature of man is the right one? If we ask soberly, then there is no reason to believe the optimists. Then all experience and logic says that reality is with the pessimists, and since it is dangerous to build your policy on an illusion, it is imperative that the truth be heard in the political debate.

When democracy let the optimists succeed in labelling the pessimists as xenophobes and Islamophobes, it took a catastrophic course. And the media, particularly the taxpayer-subsidised media who have participated in maintaining this illusion, have a particular part of the blame. If democracy is to get back on track, then rational pessimism has to be at the helm again.

That point of view sees the naïveté behind the optimism. And here Jespersen’s and Pittelkow’s book is an essential contribution.

When so many have shared the optimists’ belief that man by nature is good, it is because one saw a connection between oneself being good and believing in the natural goodness of man.

Anyone who didn’t believe in the natural goodness of man had to be evil. And that connection is simply not going to hold.

As an individual, one doesn’t become good by believing in the natural goodness of man, but by being good and helpful, although one realizes that one also has many impulses in the opposite direction.

A Visit With Virgil Goode

by Baron Bodissey

Yesterday afternoon the 910 Group, the Christian Action Network, and Gates of Vienna joined forces to pay a visit to the Hon. Virgil H. Goode, Jr., in his office on Capitol Hill.

Gary Olds and Martin Mawyer (at right, with Congressman Goode) represented CAN, Christine from the 910 Group was there to listen and answer questions, and I was there as a constituent, to represent Gates of Vienna, to take photos, and to sit in on the conversation.

As most of you already know, Congressman Goode wrote a letter to a constituent last month about newly-elected Rep. Keith Ellison and the Koran. When the letter was made public he found himself in hot water with CAIR, the media, and other members of the Islamophobia Grievance League.

In an effort to clear up any misapprehensions he might have about Islam, Rep. Goode has been visited by Muslims from various organizations. But that’s not his only source of information on the topic — as a member of Congress, he has access to classified information about the Islamist groups that are operating secretly within the United States.

“I tell you, there are some dangerous people right here in the United States — real terrorists,” he said. “The American people need to be aware of it.”

Read the whole thing on Gates of Vienna, and then, if ye be daring, the www.910group.com/forum may be available to you, so you can get down to work.