A friend of mine drew my attention to a report recently published by the BBC and highlights the inherent ethnocentric bias in the West. Anjem Choudry is conducting a march (or parade according to BBC – this is subtle psychological preparation for the report to imbue in the reader a reaction to the effect, “are they parading the death of British soldiers!? How disgusting!” and hence set the negative tone for the rest of the article). This march is to take place in Wiltshire which apparently has become famous for driving empty coffins through the town to pay tribute to soldiers killed in Afghanistan. Anjem Choudary wants to pay tribute to Muslims killed in Afghanistan in the same way. On the face of it, it seems fair. Why aren’t the innocent Muslims paid tribute to, especially when one realises that Afghanistan-based drones have a tendency to be faulty leading to “collateral damage” (39 out of 44 drone attacks in 2009 targeted civilians leading to 700 civilian deaths). Make no mistake; civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq massively outnumber the deaths of coalition forces and should be acknowledged.
Since my initial blog concerning the extremely high levels of morality demonstrated by the Israeli military, I have blogged about this laughable morality on numerous occasions. The watermark for Israeli military morality has moved on considerably since then.
It has been sometime since I have written on this topic in depth, mainly due to various time constraints and the fact that such a topic requires nerves of steel as well a cool mental acumen. As a result issues such as the UN Human Right Council approval of the Goldstone report which highlights the crimes perpetrated by Israel during the Gaza massacre, the court ruling that Jewish schools are racist in the context of their enrolment policy, Jewish terrorism actually being acknowledged by the BBC (!), and that Israel’s ethnic cleansing policy through destruction of Palestinians homes and the reconstruction of Israeli buildings on top continues unabated with the intention of making Jerusalem the capital of Israel, I have noticed but not commented upon.
However reports which are coming to light concerning Israel, children, organs and smuggling has forced me to put pen to paper, or rather fingers to keyboard. Initially reports mainly from Arab newspapers which were picked up by the Jewish media state that according to Interpol, children are being kidnapped by Jewish gangs and then being sold to American and Israeli jews for organ harvesting. As ever the veracity of such reports is questioned by the Western media, the same media who makes unverified claims that for instance, the Taliban are behind attacks in Pakistan. Nevertheless, the plot thickens – and what surfaces is more distressing than watching a sadistic horror movie as a 9 year old.
From the days of Jack Straw to the Shaykh Tantawi incident, much has been done by various quarters to exasperate the restriction on the freedom of women to… cover up. Its “hot”, “steamy” and “raunchy” when women dress down and hence acceptable because it provides eye-candy for the male-elite, but that which any respectable woman with an inkling of modesty and honour would do which is to cover themselves and the media, nay, the political establishment come baring down on a minor section of the Muslim society.
The BBC article concerning the launch of the Saudi channel Awtan TV is a case in point.
In a world which places people in different groups separated by their own interests, the power of the public opinion plays a great role in discerning which of those interests supersedes the other. Hence the Vietnam war took an about-turn when images of American soldiers marching along little children mostly naked, and where entire villages were destroyed filtered into the American public. The US army was hated by its own people and a war came to an end. The latter-day War on Terror, which many Muslims regard as Crusade on Muslims is a case in point. Day in day out Muslims are maligned in the terror inducing linguistics of the malicious media machinery. From 9/11, to July 7th, to terror raids which bubble up every now and then to maintain the momentum of the air of fear.
Muslims unfortunately take a sympathetic stance to the media, ignoring vital words of the Prophet on how we should treat news delivered to us concerning a Believer. This will be covered in a separate, more detailed blog.
It was early hence the title had a question mark at the end. Today’s post however has a more assertive full stop. And the reason is the incredibly insightful academic article below by respected Shaykh Riyadh Nadwi, director of Oxford Cross-Culture Research Institute and student of one of the greatest scholars and historians of this Ummah of the past century, Shaykh Abu ‘l Hasan Ali Nadwi (Rahimahullah).
As a recent graduate who learnt virtually nothing of any use in his three years of study, who also happened to choke a couple of exams and end up with a third class degree, I was devastated when I stumbled upon this article.
“Andrew gets the interviews, Muhammed doesn’t”
There it was. In big bold letters – what I’d suspected all along; I was doomed.
According to research by the Department for Work and Pensions; for every nine applications sent by a white applicant, an equally good applicant with an ethnic minority name had to send 16 to obtain a positive response. Great. As if the graduate market isn’t tough enough my name means I’m almost 50% less likely to receive a positive response than my non-ethnic counterpart. Throw in a fist length beard (which never seems to look neat on the day of an interview) and a mosque hat and a not-all-that-confident young man has got problems.
“We are speaking as the grandsons of Ottomans who treated your ancestors [Jews] as guests in this land [Turkey] when they were expelled from Europe“
Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Israel on the 2009/09 Gaza attack
For a very long time now, I have sat examining the shift in thought pattern and policy of the latter day Turks. Having visited Turkey recently, I can say for sure, there is a strong popular support for the current ruling government and deep love for Islam and concern for the Ummah. Of course, as ever they were the torch-bearers of the Muslim world for over five centuries. With the likes of the legendary conqueror of Constantinople Sultan Muhammad al-Fatih being the stalwarts of justice, bravery intelligence and upholders of the flag of Islam, the sons of Othman Ghazi (the founder of the “Ottomans”) raised the head of the Muslim world high in the face of major disasters, such as the Crusades and the Tartar Mongol hoards.
After social degradation, militant secular enforcement and a loss of Islamic principles, it seems the “neo-Ottomans” again are showing the Arabs, and the rest of the Muslim world, how Allah is the only the Being to be feared; no longer do the Turks wear bangles. The beginning of something big, has begun.
Riots. Racism. Ridiculous. When I was at school I was told that racism was an evil thing and that it was “intolerable”. At college a student was expelled for calling his fellow student a “nigger”. When I hit university, my International Human Rights lecturer told me that the rights of minorities was embedded in international legal instruments and that it was of paramount importance; on par with basic human rights despite the problem of addressing rights to a “people” as opposed to an individual. The ineffective international legislation is fickle and of course unenforceable most of the time. But the notion that subjugation or targeting of a group of people was unacceptable was definitely postulated. Perhaps it only exists in the higher thoughts of man; and clearly not in the empty skulls of the Sun-reading, racist white supremacists. So why is there no outrage being expressed by the vile action and language being used by EDL. Watch any Youtube video on the riots, and all you can hear them say is “f***n Pakis, go ‘owm” – dude you can’t speak English properly… what “English” are you defending? Perhaps members of the EDL need to go back to the ELC (Early Learning Centre) or enrol on an ESOL course…
Rupert Murdoch. I have mentioned him in other posts in the past. The man owns and of course directs much of the Western media and indeed elsewhere around the globe. The same media which is accomplice to the increase in the Hijab tearing, racist jibing hate crimes, responsible for the creation of the evil entity known as the “Islamist” (no doubt assisted by the cogs of the machinery – Ed Husain et al) and the spread of xenophobia. And al-Qaeda. You know the same al-Qaeda that no one, perhaps even Osama bin Laden himself, had heard of before 9/11 and is now this supranational entity hell-bent on bringing the Western values to it’s knees via military level precision plots to blow up shoes.
on how we should treat news delivered to us concerning a Believer. This will be covered in a separate, more detailed blog.
is the only the Being to be feared; no longer do the Turks wear bangles. The beginning of something big, has begun.