We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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The Khaleej Times is reporting that the Danish consul to Dubai has said:
The massive protests in the Muslim world against the Danish cartoons have helped Denmark, as also Europe, have a better understanding of, and respect for, Islam
Well that is both quite correct and completely false, but of course a diplomat is someone whose job it is to lie for his country. It has indeed given millions of Europeans a better understanding of Islam… and thereby led them to an utter lack of respect for it. Now every time I hear someone saying “Islam is one of the world’s great religions”, I tend to get very rude rather quickly.
The diplomat was quite sound on the core issue however.
The Danish diplomat made it clear that, however, ‘We will not change our constitution (to exert controls over the media)’.
And that is why this site has a ‘support Denmark: no burqa on free speech’ graphic in the sidebar. Hold the line.
Update: It would appear that Imran Khan is now officially a moron:
I don’t think the message has got through that for us it’s far more painful than perhaps even the Holocaust for the Jews. Any caricature or any ridicule or any humiliation of the holy prophet is far more painful for the Muslims
These cartoons are more ‘painful’ that the mass extermination of six million Jews? And this from a much acclaimed ‘moderate’? Yes indeed, I think a great many people’s understanding of Islam is improving pretty much by the day.
There was an excellent article the other day in the Prague Post about the whole Jyllands-Posten ‘Mohammed cartoons’ issue. What a pity such sentiments seem few and far between in the craven media in Britain.
To many, the notion that a cartoon could provoke global riots, dozens of deaths, a $1 million assassination contract and vacillation among Western leaders seems like an abstract fantasy, a trip down the rabbit hole into a theater of the absurd.
But that perspective remains precisely what these protesters have attacked: the rejection of the idea that it’s justified – or even rational – to kill people over their speech, particularly a statement as trifling as a cartoon.
The purple elephant in the middle of this crossfire is the contemporary notion – or, more accurately, the Western one – that the values of most Islamic societies have modernized along with the rest of the world.
[…]
The West has naively greeted this scorpion with its Cold War handshake, believing that the virtues of peace and democracy appear self-evident; as if good intentions, by definition, will be good enough. But even the mainstream Islamic mindset has proven inscrutable to the West in a way that communism was mythologized to be but never truly was.
Good stuff. Read the whole thing.
Also, some of the people very much at ‘fatwa ground zero’, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Salman Rushdie, are taking a stand against the new Islamic totalitarianism.
(hat tip to JP)
For those of you who are following Michael Totten’s interesting Middle Eastern adventures, he has written about one of the more interesting religious groups in that part of the world.
There is an excellent article by Michael Totten, who is currently blogging from Iraq, about what quite a few people think is the inevitable end result: partition into three (or at least two) separate entities. It is interesting to see the facts on the ground seem to back up the view that we already have a de facto independent Kurdistan.
An Islamo-fascist Southern Iraq is not such a great outcome but an independent Kurdistan would seem to have much to commend it.
I really have no problem with that and wrote something on the subject myself called: to hell with nation building, lets see some nation wrecking!
Andrew Sullivan, reminds me why I was a fan of his blog from the off and remain one:
Leave aside the issue of mob violence for a moment. No moderate Muslim or “sensitive” Westerner is defending that. What of the non-violent request: that one faith be granted its taboos, that Western culture must abide by them, that the law be reformed to protect religious faiths from blasphemy or offense? It seems to me that we should indeed avoid gratuitous insult of Islam, and Christianity, or any faith. But it is a complete delusion to believe that the major source of our problem today is something called “Islamophobia.” No: the problem is terrorism and tyranny propagated under the banner of Islam. Without that, no Danish cartoon could have been conceived of, let alone published. That is the real and far more blatant blasphemy. If 10,000 angry Muslims had marched in London after the bombing of a major mosque in Iraq, I’d be impressed. But they didn’t. Until they do, the West has nothing to apologize for. The Muslim world needs to take the beam out of its own eye, before it removes the speck from the West’s.
I must say that I always enjoy reading what Michael Totten has to say even if I do not always agree (though in truth I find myself agreeing more and more often). His reports from Lebanon were always compelling.
He is now writing from Iraq (Kurdistan to be exact) and I strong recommend people take a peek at his blog.
In the past I have had opportunities to spend money at Carrefour, but due to a conflux of circumstances, I am happy to say that I have never bought a thing from this large French supermarket chain. And now I never will.
Via Tim Blair.
Erik and Arthur Wneir from No Pasaran took on several thousand Muslim protesters and only the intervention of French police prevented a repeat of the Battle of Tours.
More seriously, watch the video to see the characteristic Muslim reaction to people daring to state an opinion different to theirs.
“As an old Sci-Fi fan, I firmly believe that we will encounter alien races someday. These conversations are good practice. I would imagine there will really be some different worldviews when that happens, esp. if they’re hydrogen breathers.”
Comment by regular Samizdata contributor calling himself VeryRetired, who describes what it feels like to debate with apologists for radical Islam: ie, the sheer inability to bridge a gulf of understanding between those who support the open society, free speech and enquiry, and those for whom the statements contained in a book written over a thousand years ago contain the sum total of wisdom, the criticism of which should be dealt with violently.
I certainly do tend to think that understanding of how to cope with radical Islam can be usefully supplemented by reading Robert A. Heinlein, say, or Vernor Vinge rather than the editorial pages of the Guardian or the Daily Telegraph.
The demonstration in Trafalgar square, supported by dhimmi-in-chief for London Ken Livingston, was clearly orchestrated to show a homogenised face of ‘moderate Islam’ for the world to see. An interesting feature of the demo was that no ‘home made placards’ were tolerated by the organisers. A small group of Kurds turned up with their own signs and were fairly quickly handed the printed blue-white official signs. I was not quick enough to get a picture of the Kurdish ones before they vanished as I did not expect them to be taken down, but the ones in English were fairly anodyne.
Not even in Islamic green! I would guess maybe 7,000 people showed up, perhaps 10,000 tops, at least by the time I lost interest around 3:00 and wandered off to a nearby computer faire. Many of the usual suspects were there, such as the inevitable socialist workers and CND set…
Quite what wicked old Blair and BushMcHitler have to do with protesting against cartoons of Mohammed in Denmark was not clear
Hands off secular fascist police states and theocratic police states!
You can be sure those naughty cartoons (or that tee-shirt) would not have been allowed in Cuba! The large official signs were clearly expensive high quality creations and contained all manner of utterly irrelevant slogans designed to appeal to the ‘hard of thinking’.
So if some Muslim desires sharia law for themselves, presumably this is what he also wishes for me… Oh I feel much better now!
Tolerance? Sure, it is yours by right. Respect? You must be joking, that you have to earn
Jyllands-Posten did not ‘incite’ to violence, they just defended free expression, unlike some others we know of. Respect however has nothing to do with it
And just to remind people what this is really about…
The Danish embassy in London under police guard And one final picture which tickled my sense of irony… a pleasant looking young woman watching the demonstration in her stylish Christian Dior scarf.
A Danish blogger and columnist, Henrik Føhns, alerted me to a post on his blog, Mondofunza about a letter to ‘Muslim citizens’…
A letter from Another Denmark
Dear Muslim citizens in Denmark and the World
I wish to state the existence of another Denmark: A Denmark that wants to live in peace with the Muslim world. There is another Denmark, which hopes for and believes in respect and tolerance between religions and different groups of people.
As a Dane I have no responsibility for what a single and privately owned Danish newspaper chooses to publish. Even so, I strongly condemn the actions of Jyllands-Posten that have offended muslims around the world, and I understand the need for an apology from the newspaper.
We all have a responsibility for treating each other, our religious faiths, and
convictions with dignity and respect. By publishing the caricatures of Muhammad, the newspaper Jyllands-Posten failed their obligation to exercise with care and consideration the right of freedom of speech.
I condemn all kinds of discrimination, prejudice and racism, whether it is directed against Muslims, Jews, Christians or other groups in a society. Therefore, I reject the hostile and prejudicial way of speaking that has marked several Danish,political parties and media within recent years.
I want to make a request to all parts involved, that opinions and protests may be conducted in a respectful and peaceful manner. Attacks on and threats against individuals and assets only make the situation worse for all of us.
I believe in a world, where religions, ethnic groups and various political and cultural opinions can coexist in an atmosphere of dialogue, tolerance and mutual respect.
I wish to state the existence of Another Denmark that conceives itself as a part of such a heterogenous world and humanity. In the sincere hope of international tolerance and respect.
Despite some agonising, Henrik’s response is unequivocal:
I have not signed the letter and do not intend to do so. I too want to live in peace with the muslim world, but I want to live by terms set by a modern democratic society. Not by rules set by autocratic, fundamentalistic, religious regimes. The outrage about the Danish cartoons have other roots than the cartoons themselves. The cartoons and Denmark have just become scapegoats for social and political disorder in the Middle East…
… I have nothing against christianity, islam or other religions. But when they start to preach and act against basic human rights – count me out.
Note: Also, Happy Birthday, Henrik!
Muslim Action Committee are calling for changes to the law in Britain to implement an aspect of sharia law and they want the British state to do it for them. What they want is to legally ban people from displaying pictures of Mohammed, the seventh century warlord who founded their religion, because it annoys them. Never mind that showing images of this historical figure does not threaten them with violence or prevent their exercise of religion, they want to make it illegal to annoy them.
They are planning to stage a protest march in London on 18 February, expecting to attract 20,000 to 50,000 people. I hope the number is considerably larger because I am sure as hell going to be there expressing my views as well.
If they get their way, we will undoubtedly be prosecuted as Samizdata’s response to this islamo-fascist proposal will be a “Mohammed Picture of the Day”, each day and every day until hell freezes over or we run out of server space. Intolerant Islam does not like being annoyed? Well guys, you ain’t seen nothing yet, I promise you that. Our Dutch friends at The Amazing Retecool are a fairly good place to start for interesting interpretations of Mohammed’s image.
If this ever becomes law and I personally get dragged into court over what Samizdata will most certainly do, rest assured that as we are hosted in the USA we will remain on-line and ‘expressive’ regardless, even if I have to ‘host’ myself in the USA a few years earlier that I expected. So to all your intolerant Islamic fascists out there who think it is within your power to silence all the voices you dislike, with all due respect (i.e. none), you are very much mistaken.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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