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Writings and Publications by Joseph B. H. McMillan
Part 7 of "Free Speech, The War on Terror and Islam" by Joseph B.H. McMillan:
The Problem Identified; Debate or Debacle; Arabs, Islam and the Nazis; Islam and the Dark Ages; Civilization and Tolerance under Islam; Conservatives "calling it as it is"?; Free Speech and Debate; The Consequences; A Solution?; Footnotes
Free Speech and Debate
So what we see today is a curtailing of free speech, and thus debate, by “responsible Governments”, which has the perverse effect of deceiving the already educationally challenged population into believing something which is patently untrue. Our 'leaders', secular and spiritual, delude themselves as to the true nature of Islam and 'instruct' the rest of us that Islam is a great and tolerant religion which has been hijacked by fanatics. The media, educational establishments and 'cultural' institutions perpetuate the myth. But worse, the legal establishment is also a willing recruit to this 'conspiracy' of deception, brandishing legal sanctions against those who dare to challenge the deception. And even when any challenge to the deception does not cross the 'legal threshold', institutional sanction is brought to bear in a myriad of forms, from loss of a job to being ostracised and vilified for racism, fascism, xenophobia or one of the multitude of 'intolerance crimes' in the lexicon of Liberal Fundamentalist dogma.
Delusion also leads inexorably to appeasement. This inevitable consequence of delusion is evident in all so-called Western democracies and infects every aspect of our lives. In Mr Kilroy-Silk's case, even though he did not specifically criticise Islam, the Muslim 'community' decided he had and called, successfully, for his dismissal as a presenter from the BBC. The Commission for Racial Equality in Britain called, less successfully so far, for his prosecution for inciting racial and religious hatred.
After 9/11, we saw President Bush 'warning' the people of America that hostility towards Islam would not be tolerated. We saw the same from Blair. Both have monotonously reminded us that Islam is a great, peaceful and tolerant religion. We are told that it is only a minority of extremists who perpetrate terror and incite hatred.
If that were the case the so-called 'war on terror' would have been over exceptionally quickly. Not only do these 'pronouncements' fly in the face of reality, they fly in the face of the observable facts. In Nigeria, thousands of Christians have been slaughtered by Muslims over the last few years. In every country of the world with a Muslim population, there are Islamic groups who practice, fund or support terror. Christians are forbidden to have Bibles in places like Saudi Arabia. In countries practicing Islamic Law, people have their hands amputated, are beheaded or sentenced to death by stoning. Women's rights are non-existent. Jews are forbidden to enter most Islamic countries, let alone exercise any rights. Jewish men, women and children are murdered on an almost daily basis in Israel and around the world, just as they have been murdered and persecuted by Muslims since the establishment of Islam in the seventh century. And they are murdered because of the hatred and incitement found in the Koran, not because of the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the myth of the 'displacement of millions of Palestinians', as so many would have us believe, especially in Europe.
A multitude of such incidents is cited by Messrs Frum and Perle throughout their book. They even acknowledge that the "roots of Muslim rage are to be found in Islam itself."(69) So when they claim that President Bush was right to insist that we have no quarrel with Islam itself, they confuse "quarrel" with actual military conflict. That is a delusion that inhibits the overall conduct of the war on terror.
And as we delude ourselves, in the face of the facts, that it is not in Islam itself where the problem is to be found, but in the 'hijacking of a great religion' by a fanatical few, we appease those who would do us harm. So if anyone questions Islam itself, our delusion and appeasement is exploited by the 'Muslim Community' to silence any critical analysis. Thus we find the odd situation of racial and religious hatred being expounded in the Mosques in the Western world, reinforced by regular murder of innocent Jews, but we are precluded from questioning the 'morality' of the religion advocating such prejudice and inhumanity. To do so, we are told, would be a display of intolerance, which will not be tolerated.
It is a form of delusion and appeasement which makes Chamberlain look positively Churchillian. And its effect will be the same, but with immensely more catastrophic consequences.
The more the Islamic world sees Islam accorded a special immune status in western democracies, the more will Muslims believe that Islam's final victory over the world is at hand. "See they not that We Gradually reduce the land (in their control) from its Outlying borders? (Where) God Commands, there is none To put back His Command: And He is Swift In calling to account. Those before they did (also) Devise plots; but in all things The master-planning is God's. He knoweth the doings Of every soul: and soon Will the Unbelievers know Who gets home in the end." (70)
It is not lost on Muslims that even President Bush, the vilified war monger in many quarters, especially in Europe, pays uncritical homage to Islam even after thousands of people were murdered on 9/11 by Muslims shouting Islamic slogans. Throughout the world, Muslims celebrated. Even in Britain there were celebrations in the streets by Muslims.
But we are told that such sentiments are those of a fanatical minority expressing their right to free speech in a free democracy. In 'Palestine', Lebanon etc, the excuse was the Israeli 'occupation'. So even those very few Muslim leaders who condemned the 9/11 atrocities had the audacity to call for introspection by us because of the injustice many Muslims perceive in Western, meaning mainly American, policies in the Middle East. Those 'leaders' are emboldened by scarcely concealed anti-Semitism in Europe, condoned as anti-Zionism. So 9/11, and the Muslim world's response to it, rather than instilling in us a resolve to face the facts and look critically at the religion that spawned people willing to commit such carnage, sees Western 'leaders' resort to uninformed platitudes, praising the peaceful nature of Islam and, led by the Europeans, vowing to "address Muslim grievances", meaning Israel. Until western 'leaders' acknowledge that the "Palestinian problem" is rooted itself in Islamic hatred of the Jews, we have no hope of "addressing" the problem, unless, as the Muslims desire, we collaborate in the destruction of Israel. The solution to the "Palestinian problem" does not rest with Western countries. It will be found when Muslims acknowledge that the problem is not Israel, its defensive fence, 'displacement', or other excuses for killing Jews, but the inherent hatred of Jews found in the verses of the Koran, and proclaimed across the Muslim world in mosques, schools, universities, the media, and even enshrined in the law of many states.
And that is where a fundamental problem lies. The Koran is claimed to be the actual word of God. To challenge anything in the Koran is blasphemy. Islam does not have a release valve. So when the embers of hatred are fanned there is nothing in the Koran which can be used to quench the flames before they become an all-consuming inferno. Islam is a train without brakes. It does not have a preacher lamenting "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity."(71) "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" ( 72) for God has "set the world in [man's] heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end,"(73) so it is best "that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour."(74). Or a "render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's."(75)
If I am wrong on that, then I see few Muslims opening the valve or applying the brakes.
The delusion suffered today concerning Islam has very disturbing parallels with the delusions suffered before the Second World War. Hitler was not confronted when he started expelling and persecuting Jews. The Evian conference was called to see which countries would take the expelled Jews, as if they were some kind of contaminated commodity. The obvious hatred towards the Jews in Hitler's writings and speeches were all but ignored. His seizing of territory and threatening neighbours was excused as being a consequence of the 'injustice' of the Versailles Treaty following WW I. Churchill's was the only “voice crying in the wilderness”. But he was virtually ostracised for being a 'war monger'. The world deluded itself that Nazism was but a fanatical minority in Germany whose time would pass. So the more Hitler was appeased the more his credibility and ideology grew, even amongst 'moderate Germans'. Hitler's vision was a world dominated by his ideology.
Such comparisons between Islam and Nazism will be greeted by outrage, rebuke and vilification; and in Britain, probably prosecution for inciting racial hatred.
But I challenge those who make those charges to demonstrate that the direct quotes from the Koran, and the historical record, are baseless.
So the final questions are these: what will the consequences of this delusion and appeasement be, apart from the obvious one of curbing free speech, and can the consequences be avoided?
Click here to read Part 8 of this article, "The Consequences"
Copyright © Joseph BH McMillan 2002 - 2007 All Rights Reserved
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