Jalan-Jalan...

What's the difference between 'encourage' and 'glorify'?

The ruling Labour party in the British Parliament is adamant that those who 'glorify' terrorism' ought to be prosecuted, while the House of Lords prefer the more legalistic word 'encourage'. All this in the light of those clowns who carried makeshift, handwritten placards in the first demonstration against the Muhammad cartoons in London. One man with the unlikely name of Omar Khayyam was vilified by the media — as he should be — for wearing straps over his chest that made him look like a suicide bomber. This Khayyam, as it turned out, was out on good behaviour, but still under sentence for dealing in drugs. So back he went to prison.

As far as I could see, in the dirst demo, only a handful of people (out of a few thousand) carried provocative placards, but these were the people on whom the media kept their focus. Now, if you look at the background of many 'Islamic' terroriorists extant or in prison, you'll find that they come from very murky backgrounds. Ex gangsters turned followers of the Abu Hamzah mosque in Finsbury, crack dealers who took to the message. Doesn't it make you wonder where they all came from?

Well, let's take Abu Hamzah the firebrand who hijacked the Finsbury park Mosque and stayed there for years before they decided to nab him. I saw Abu Hamzah when he was briefly the Friday Imam in our neck of wood, and having heard him once preaching an inflammatory brand of Islam I resolved never to listen to his sermons again. He ended his Friday sessions by vilifying other 'ulama' who, according to him, were misled. Happily for us he drifted and re-emerged in Finsbury Park, where the media like the Muslim-baiter the Daily Express, were fond of photographing him leading prayers on the pavement (when the Mosque was finally locked up).

They only decided to prosecute him when the US wanted him extradited. Prosecuting him and sending him to prison here in Britain meant that the extradition could be stopped. Now, it isn't that I wish even the inscrutable Abu Hamzah the fate of extreme rendition by some contractor nations, but even now I still wonder, "How's that then?"

So we now come back to the words 'encourage' and 'glorify'. The government says that they cannot prosecute the placard instigators to violence; there isn't a law now to make that stick on them. They, of course, prefer, 'glorification of terrorism'. There are two things here that make it all very strange. Our friend Abu Hamzah wasn't prosecuted under some newfangled law, but under the Public Order Act that dated back to 1816.

And then, if you make 'glorification of terrorism' an offence, what are the judges to make of that? What if our friends behind the Wall in the land of Zion wish to drink a toast to Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon, two well-known terrorists, in London? Will they be taken to Dock Green by our man Dixon? And poor dear old Mandela, we'll no longer be able to sing a song of praise for him for his ANC days when the occasion calls. That's 'glorfication' for you, of 'terrorism'.

Oh dear, oh dear, isn't the law strange.

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Encouraging Glorification

The Muslim Council of Britain deserves praise for their very well-organised rally for Muhammad in Trafalgar Square London, 11th Fabruary. Not only was the rally peaceful and exemplary, but it was also attended by people of other faiths and no faith who carried placards and spoke against the racism and provocation that's been at the root of the publication of those cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper and elsewhere.

Bruce Kent, leading light of the peace movement and a prominent Christian leader said that Islamophobia isn't a new phenomenon. "I see placards saying that Muhammad was sent as a mercy to mankind," he told the crowd of about 20,000. "We are part of that mercy."

I shall be positng more pictures from this rally later, elsewhere.

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Rally for Muhammad

Abusing the Prophet isn't something new. It happened during his own time, by both men and women. And the Prophet did not call for retaliations but merely ignored and forgave. The traditions of the Prophet give beautiful instances of this. One day a neighbour who habitually deposited excrement on his door step stopped doing it, so he became worried and knocked on his door to ask if he was unwell. "How did you know?" the defecator asked. Because you've stopped putting excrement on my doorstep, I've just come to see if I can be of help.

The sad defecator became a convert.

In Sahih al-Bukhari, the Prophet said: "Do no evil to those who do evil to you, but you deal with them with forgiveness, kindness."

The Qur'an, above all, says: "Bring them to the way of your Lord with diplomacy, and good words..."

I do not want to debate free expression here, or democracy or tolerance because cant and hypocricy surround those words. In France freedom also means the freedom to stop Muslims from wearing the hijab, and this too in some so-called Muslim countries that take pride in intrusive secularism. In other parts of the world we have David Irving and Ernest Zundel, both imprisoned, but for what? What they say may be abhorrent to many, but where's your freedom now? Where's your cartoons that uphold free speech?

Is freedom to speak an absolute right? Show me anything in life that is. In 1919, in the case of Schenck v. United States, this was said: "the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic." And last month a woman was arrested near Downing Street for reading out loud a list of soldiers dead in Iraq.

A newspaper in Denmark has chosen to cock a snook at Muslims by printing cartoons that insult Islam and the Prophet. Muslims love the Prophet more than anyone else, so if this wasn't crass provocation I don't know what is. Understandably, Muslims all over the world have come out in protest, some peacefully, some wildly, because the bulk of the Muslim population are simple, God-fearing folk who think more with their hearts than their heads. In Britain the usual band of looney extremists too have come out of the woodwork, though the protest was a peaceful one. I'm talking here about those who carried banners calling for 'murder' and glorifying 9-11 and 7/7 and all that. It is not known who these people are, but just as there are agents provocateurs among Mullahs [sic], there are also them among the populace. They covered their faces with the kefiyyeh, and I would urge them — whoever they are — to go home and study those words I've quoted above.

There is another reason why I shall not go out on the protest march. Of late Muslims have been like performing animals, jumping into every hoop that they place before us. It is time to stop pandering to their whims and just give them the best treatment that our mothers gave to their spoilt, attention-seeking children. Just ignore the brats; soon they'll realise the pointlessness of their act and sulk.

As far as I know, no one has died in these demonstrations, and God forbid that anyone will. Think positive thoughts. Islam is now the most high-profile religion in the world, so there must be something positive in that. In the West many have come to Islam, in the US Islam is the fastest growing religion, especially among the Hispanics. If Muslims continue to do good and avoid whatever is extreme they will not suffer losses form that; if they continue to live by the dictates of their religion and continue to spread the truth, they will gain the upper hand.

Many European newspapers are now coming out to reproduce those cartoons, aparently to make a point about freedom. (Freedom for what?). This reminds me of children who deliberately taunt to produce a rage — Neh, ne, neh-neh-neh! — They will be fulfilled by your rage, your anger is food for their lack of thought. So let them.

So let the Danes stew in their own juice and bacon fat, but as for their milk and cheese and whatever else, no thanks, Denmark.

§: World of Free Speech: 1; 2; 3


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Why I Shall Not Join the March