The most evil, filthy things
The reporter for Channel 4 is filming undercover as the woman preacher gives her talk.
What should be done to a Muslim who converts to another faith? “We kill him,” she says, “kill him, kill, kill…You have to kill him, you understand?” Adulterers, she says, are to be stoned to death – and as for homosexuals, and women who “make themselves like a man, a woman like a man … the punishment is kill, kill them, throw them from the highest place”. These punishments, the preacher says, are to be implemented in a future Islamic state. “This is not to tell you to start killing people,” she continues. “There must be a Muslim leader, when the Muslim army becomes stronger, when Islam has grown enough.”
What can you say? What is there to say? This is fascism; fascism of the worst kind; the kind that not only thinks whole large sets of people should be summarily killed, but also feels perfectly happy to say so in public (though highly exclusive and sectarian and carefully non-integrated) places. This is the worst possible nightmare – the worst possible kind of human being, and the worst possible vision of society. This is a utopia in which all the best kinds of people are ‘thrown from the highest place’ by a set of malevolent narrow mindless death-loving ignorant shits. This is hell on earth. Everything good wiped out, everything bad given power to tyrannize and control and destroy.
The mosque is meant to promote moderation and integration. But although the circle does preach against terrorism and does not incite Muslims to break British laws, it teaches Muslims to “keep away” and segregate themselves from disbelievers: “Islam is keeping away from disbelief and from the disbelievers, the people who disbelieve.” Friendship with non-Muslims is discouraged because “loyalty is only to the Muslim, not to the kaffir [disbeliever]”. A woman who was friendly with a non-Muslim woman was heavily criticised: “It’s part of Islam, of the correct belief, that you love those who love Allah and that you hate those who hate Allah.”
As Saudi textbooks teach children – in those words.
Like many of the other women at the circle, I was soon invited to private sessions in houses around London, to “learn more” about Islam – or their version of Islam. Um Saleem was also at some of these sessions. Here, the women were given strict restrictions on their lives: it is reiterated that British Muslim women cannot travel far without a male guardian, cannot mix with men, and have to remain fully covered up at all times. One woman in the audience queried the strict rulings that she cannot travel without a mahram – a male member of the family – escorting her. She asked: “Sister, if me and my husband, we can’t go together, what do I do if I want to go?” She was told she cannot travel by herself. She asked again: “So what do I do?” “You go with your husband,” Um Saleem replied. There were also restrictions on education or work opportunities. One woman, who works for the NHS, was told she should leave her job as it meant mixing with men and not wearing a full Islamic garment. “You know that working in an environment that is not Islamic, working with the kuffaar, all this takes you away from the religion and hardens your heart and it would be lying to you if I say it’s OK,” Um Saleem explained. Um Saleem also criticised Muslim women who integrate into society – a view that is counter to the aims of the Regent’s Park Mosque. “You see Muslims in every sphere of everyday life in this country, I see Muslims, it breaks my heart when I see them working in banks, short sleeves, tight scarf like this, make-up, being with the kuffaar all the time, even speaking their language,” she said.
Yeah, terrible, isn’t it, women out in the world doing ordinary work in ordinary places and being around people just as if they were people, even speaking their language – it’s shocking, isn’t it.
The Mosque’s official bookshop was another focus for the Dispatches film last year when our reporters discovered intolerant and fundamentalist DVDs…I found the same fundamentalist preachers’ works still openly displayed and sold there. DVDs preaching that disbelievers are “evil, wicked, mischievous people … they do the most evil, filthy things”; that men are in charge of women and should control them…Darussalam International Publications told me that the bookshop sells a wide range of material which they “do not necessarily agree with”. It said: “We try to represent a variety of…opinions through the products we sell…in order to spread peace, respect, tolerance and understanding.”
Ah yes of course! Peace respect tolerance and understanding! Of course selling ‘products’ that preach hatred of ‘disbelievers’ and subordination of women is just the way to spread peace respect tolerance and understanding.
This stuff is so bottomlessly disgusting. It makes me want to move to another planet, or become another species, or build myself a fortified bunker. It makes me despair of human beings.
I didn’t realize Channel 4 would be so swift in getting undercover at a Sarah Palin campaign rally.
Hey, but at least these folks are onto how bad American imperialism is, right?
David, I’m not sure I understand what you meant. If I’m being thick-headed, I’m sorry. Could you please clarify?
“…”We try to represent a variety of…opinions through the products we sell…in order to spread peace, respect, tolerance and understanding.”
***
All this ever means is: “towards Islam”. Like so many of the Koranic verses Muslims like to quote at the West, the sentence is never completed.
There was a recent Comment is Free item on abuse a woman received who was covered from head to toe. This was thought, of course, to be a terrible infringement of human rights. Nevertheless, when you consider the purpose of the shrouding of women, the implicit refusal it expresses to associate with the kuffar, don’t we, at some point, need to have a clear statement from Muslim people in our midst that this is not the way they feel?
I know I have been put in my place before for saying such outrageous things, but somewhere don’t we need to start drawing lines, welcoming people into our midst who deserve our respect, and rejecting those who would, in turn, reject us? Ayan Hirsi Ali has suggested to western countries that they bring an end to Muslim immigration until it is clear what intentions these people have for the societies they are entering. Is this an unrealistic expectation, that we should stop catering to people who real intention is, in the end, not only to exclude, but to dominate the society around them?
Or am I just an Islamophobe? In Germany in the 1920s and 30s the same kinds of accusations were made, that Jews intended to dominate, to take over industry, finance, etc., and that was actually mistaken. But in this case there seems to be too much evidence, real evidence, not cooked up by the Czar’s secret police, that this is what many Muslim immigrants really intend. Of course, they are not so devious. They won’t take over the scientific and financial establishments, because these are really intrinsically kuffar. The intention is to destroy these heretical aspects of western society and put the perfect society of Islam in its place. Am I being hysterical now?!
totally offtopic, but something about pro-life, abstinence-only VP nominee Sarah Palin’s recent pregnancy smells a little fishy
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-69834
and how come Mat Su Regional hospital’s webpage has no record of a Trig Palin being born there on April 18?
Well I prefer not to put it in terms of welcoming people or rejecting them. For one thing that just sounds too much like the wisdom of the mullahs – you have to love these people and hate those people. For another thing it’s bad in itself (which is also why we recoil from the wisdom of the mullahs). For another thing it doesn’t ultimately help much just to tell people to go away, because that just moves the horrible dangerous life-ruining ideas elsewhere. The problem is not the people, it’s the ideas. Of course it’s people who have them – but nevertheless what we’re ‘phobic’ about is the ideas, not their carriers.
It’s a very nasty problem, any way you look at it. What’s the solution – police every mosque in the world?
JoshS — I was just indulging in some sarcasm, the lowest form of humor, here. Mocking the common cause left-wingers tend to make with extreme Islamists on the grounds that they are an “anti-imperialist” force.
I guess jokes really aren’t funny when you have to explain them! Oh well…
Sarcasm is the lowest form of humour? Well then where does that leave me?!
Sarah Palin. Godalmighty. The choice of Dan Quayle wasn’t irresponsible enough – McCain had to do better. Jeezis.
Ophelia,
Well, it was Oscar Wilde who said that sarcasm was the lowest form of humor, so I’d venture he was being sarcastic. At any rate, it’s one of the most enjoyable forms of humor, high or low.
I think the Sarah Palin pick is an interesting one, and speaks volumes about McCain’s (and possibly the Republican party’s) ideas about women. That is, they think women are dumb, and will vote for a woman simply because she is a woman, and not because of any particular views that she holds. It also suggests that McCain is positioning himself as a champion of Hillary Clinton’s supporters, which is, in my view, the richest political irony I’ve ever seen. Six months ago the idea of a Republican running, essentially, AS Hillary Clinton was completely unimaginable. Now it is a daily reality. What fun!
Oh, it’s fascinating, but in such a disgusting way…
It’s my day to be disgusted, it seems. Disgusted and sarcastic!
Thanks David. I was being a little thick. Trouble for me is, there are so many truly thick-headed people who would post such a thing seriously (you know them: “It’s just as bad here so don’t say anything”) I’m never quite sure!
Cheers,
Oh, hell! I obviously don’t know how to express this. Every time I do the suggestion is that I’m one of the mullahs! But I have a feeling that this is one contingency that Mill didn’t think of when he wrote about liberty, that is, when people simply didn’t say where they stood, didn’t argue, didn’t take a position, didn’t join in the social conversation, just waited patiently until all the conversation had died down.
I don’t want to reject anyone or to think in terms of ‘us and them’. That’s not my point, and I guess I don’t know how to put my point, but I think it doesn’t come within our normal categories of public discourse. It’s completely outside. That’s why you have to go undercover to find out what is being said. I guess my question is: how does this silent discourse – hinted at, but never really addressed, in so much that is public, get noticed and responded to? And not only in documentaries, but in explicit, political discussion?
Am I worrying too much?
I wasn’t comparing you to mullahs, Eric!
I was talking partly to myself, for one thing. I noticed, after I posted the N&C, that it sounded unnervingly similar to what the fool in the mosque was saying. An irony! I called the zealots the worst kind of people and the people they want to kill the best kind – which is too much like believers and kaffirs. I do think people who think this way are the worst kind, but I at least don’t wander around saying we should kill them, or write textbooks telling schoolchildren to hate them. I do want to silence them though.
Obviously I don’t think you’re worrying too much, or I wouldn’t have posted the very worried comment. Also obviously, I don’t know what is to be done – that’s what I said in the 22:49 comment.
Fair enough, Ophelia. I do get the point, and I should have noticed the irony. It is frustrating, though, to have to say what you don’t want to say. It’s a bit like being backed into a corner. Of course I don’t want to sound like the mullahs, and the fundamentalists. But when I try to say what I want to say, that’s what it sounds like. Consider the kind of flack that Dawkins has received. He’s called strident and shrill, but there’s nothing about Dawkins that really sounds like that, and yet that’s what he sounds like in the present climate of opinion. Oh dear!
I’m just reading Joachim Fest’s biography of Hitler, and it’s interesting how Hitler’s techniques had a way of silencing opposition, not just with the rough and rowdy stuff, but with the way that he hooked into the contemporary mood. Even when it’s brought to light, there’s very little to be said, except what dare not be said. And therein lies a serious problem, I fear.
“It is frustrating, though, to have to say what you don’t want to say.”
Tell me about it.
Sarah Palin. Godalmighty. The choice of Dan Quayle wasn’t irresponsible enough – McCain had to do better. Jeezis.
yeah well, if the rumors turn out to be true, maybe the scandal will hurt the repubs in november. here’s hoping.