Root cause is political Islam

The banality of TV news analysis!

Those who abhor instant coffee, even if it’s a designer brand with a fancy prize tag marketed by Nescafe, would also have a distaste for instant news analysis. As with instant coffee — you take a spoonful, stir it into a cup of hot water, add some sugar and milk, and voila, your coffee is ready — so also with instant news analysis dished out by 24x7 television news channels: Get a self-proclaimed ‘expert’, make him sit in the studio with a couple of smug journalists who obviously have too little to do and a lot of time to kill, ask the most banal questions, get some bovine replies, and presto, you have news analysis!

The day after FBI agents and New York Police detectives grabbed Faisal Shahzad as he tried to board an Emirates flight to Dubai at JFK Airport and the Pakistani American admitted to having planted the car bomb at Times Square, which was spotted by a vendor and defused before it could cause death and destruction, television channels here in Delhi were tripping over each other for a piece of the ‘breaking news’. One channel had a former senior diplomat along with a Pakistani journalist on its prime time show, analysing what the anchor described as a “shocking” and “astonishing” disclosure — by the FBI agents and the would be Pakistani bomber with an American passport.

What’s so ‘shocking’ or ‘astonishing’ about the entire episode? Why should we in India be at all surprised or amazed or taken aback that a Pakistani (or an American of Pakistani origin, if you prefer) got caught trying to bomb Times Square? After all, Islamist jihadis of Pakistani origin have bombed other places and targets in other countries in the past and have not been particularly merciful (which is quite contrary to what the religion of peace and mercy is believed to teach its followers) towards fellow Pakistanis either. Nor should we forget that Faisal Shahzad is not the first Pakistani American jihadi; that distinction must go to David Coleman Headley alias Daood Gilani, shared with Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Pakistani Canadian who ran the Chicago cell of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba.

Much as Pakistanis living in denial would love to believe, it would be absurd to suggest that extra-terrestrials are to blame for the daily bloodshed in that benighted country. The suicide bombers on the prowl in Pakistan, looking for places crowded with women and children to blow themselves up, are not from Mars (or Venus, for that matter). Of course, like Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who we are now told fled with Benazir Bhutto’s stand-by car and security personnel minutes before she was assassinated, they would insist that Pakistanis who kill Pakistanis are not Pakistanis but Indians in disguise. But then, as an exasperated Pakistani journalist once told me, Mr Malik would have no compunctions about blaming India for his wife begetting children.

Recall the London Underground bombing of July 7, 2005 which was masterminded by Pakistanis based in Pakistan and executed with the help of British citizens of Pakistani origin living in Britain. Three of the Underground bombers were of Pakistani origin who had spent time at terrorist camps in Pakistan, seeking and securing guidance for becoming true soldiers of god, before they embarked on their deadly mission to further the cause of jihad. The fourth was a Muslim of Jamaican origin.

Recall also the repeated terrorist strikes in India, including the 26/11 slaughter in Mumbai (for which a Pakistani has just been sentenced to death), which were plotted in Pakistan and executed by Pakistanis, admittedly with the help of those Muslims in India who believe loyalty to the ummah and fidelity to faith necessitate treachery; our desi rage boys are known to justify their traitorous deeds by citing manufactured grievance. It would also be instructive to remember that in countries across the world Pakistanis have been either arrested for links with terrorist organisations or are under surveillance.

Ironically, most Islamic and Muslim majority countries either despise or are suspicious of Pakistanis. The ikhwan is reluctant to extend membership to the exclusive club to the legatees of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. While the ‘bad’ Taliban may find the ‘good’ Taliban useful allies in their war on innocents, it is doubtful whether they would relish the idea of breaking bread together. Variants of ‘Paki’, a term of abuse in Britain of the 1960s and 1970s popular among White racists who nursed a visceral hatred towards immigrants from the Indian sub-continent, have been adopted by Arabs in the Maghreb and Mashreq.

There is nothing to feel happy about this, not least because despite the overwhelming evidence of Pakistanis and the Pakistani political-military establishment being involved in global terrorism, there are a vast number of Pakistanis who are appalled by jihadi violence and have been forthright in disowning and denouncing those of their own who have blood on their hands. The mullah is not exactly an object of reverence in polite, decent, educated Pakistani society. To get an idea of what Pakistanis think of those who continue to fetch infamy for their country one just needs to read the editorial and opeditorial pages of the Dawn and the Nation.

An example should suffice: While media in India went into throes of ecstasy over a bogus Deobandi ‘fatwa’ against terrorism, in which everything but Islamist terrorism had been criticised and declared un-Islamic, Dawn had the gumption to call the bluff of Deobandis in Pakistan when they recently tried a similar sleight of hand. Based on my interaction with young Pakistani journalists, I would vouch for their opposition to savagery in the name of Islam. Stereotyping all Pakistanis, therefore, would be wrong and grossly unfair.

Which brings me to what the former senior diplomat had to say during the television programme hosted by the anchor who found it “shocking” and “astonishing” that a Pakistani should have been found planting a bomb in Times Square. According to him, the world should ask, and the Pakistanis should contemplate on, why all terrorists and potential bombers are from that country. Apart from being factually incorrect, his assertion also suggests that the root cause of jihad is the Pakistani identity, which is way off the mark.

Mohammed Atta, who flew a passenger jetliner into the World Trade Center, was not a Pakistani but an Egyptian. His fellow terrorists were of Saudi origin. In recent times, the underpants bomber who panicked when he saw smoke emanating from his crotch after he pulled the string, did not carry a Pakistani passport; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab alias Omar Farooq al-Nigeri is a Nigerian.

If we must look for a reason, then we should go beyond nationality and delve into theology. A lazier option would be to stick labels and be done with it. Just that this won’t help deal with the menace of Islamist terrorism.

[This appeared as my Sunday column Coffee Break in The Pioneer on May 9, 2010.)

Fleeing Swatis describe horrific scenes

Tens of thousands of people are fleeing Swat Valley, escaping the horrors inflicted by the Taliban who have been enforcing 'true Islam' in areas taken over by them with the help of the gun and terror.

The joyless world, bleak and dark, created by these erstwhile students of Deobandi madarsas, is what is upheld as the cherished desire of those who believe in radical Islam's slogan, "Democracy is the problem. Islam is the solution!" Here is a report filed by AFP from Peshawar:

PESHAWAR: Shop owner Saeed Khan has already buried one child killed in fighting between the Taliban and government forces in northwest Pakistan. He cannot bear to lose another.
So the 50-year-old bundled his wife, son and daughter onto a bus in the Taliban-infested town of Mingora in the Swat valley and hurried to the city of Peshawar, hoping for a future free from further bloodshed.
‘I lost my son, who was a police officer in Swat, in a suicide attack in Mingora early this year. I buried him in front of my house,’ Khan told AFP, tears rolling down his cheeks.
‘I don’t want to dig graves for my daughter and son in Mingora. That is why I left the area... His death broke me. Tell me where should I go and from whom should I seek justice?’
Local officials say more than 40,000 men, women and children have packed up and fled Mingora since Tuesday, fearing that Pakistan’s military could unleash a fresh ground and air assault against Taliban fighters.
The bedraggled refugees, some leading goats and cattle through the streets, are seeking safety for their loved ones, as the Taliban claimed to control 90 per cent of the former ski resort and tourist getaway, once favoured by Westerners.
‘I am immediately leaving the city with my wife, mother and four kids,’ said taxi driver Ali Rehman, 46.
‘I don’t really know my destination and destiny. My family and I need protection.’
At the bus stop in Peshawar — the capital of the North West Frontier Province — exhausted and anxious people told stories of horror as they poured out of vehicles carrying old bags, blankets and bundles of clothes.
Zarina Begum, 40, pleaded for help as she staggered off a bus.
‘A mortar hit my house and as a result, I lost one of my eyes. Please take me to hospital, I want medical treatment,’ Zarina begged.
‘They (Taliban) killed my husband, they slit his throat after accusing him of spying... I escaped Swat because I don’t want my son to be killed under the same circumstances. I don’t want to receive his decapitated body.’
The government had hoped that a peace deal agree in February would placate hardliners trying to impose a repressive brand of Islam, but instead the deal appears to be in tatters.
Clashes have flared in recent days throughout Swat, where wealthy Pakistanis and foreigners used to enjoy the breathtaking mountain scenery from plush hilltop hideaways, or cruise down the ski slopes.
Now, gunfire rings out in Mingora, where armed Taliban patrol the streets.
‘I’m really scared of going to Swat. Whenever I see Taliban, they look like vampires,’ said 25-year-old shop keeper Salman Mujtaba, who lost family members in a suicide attack near Mingora.
‘I will never ever go back to Swat. It has lost its beauty.’

Islamofascism: Muslims in denial mode

Hyderabad bombing: Killed by Islamists but Muslims won't admit it!

Islam’s enemy within
At a recent conference on radical Islam, attended by scholars from India and South-East Asian countries, it was irritating to hear professors from Jamia Millia Islamia repeating the canard about the 9/11 terrorist attacks being an elaborate conspiracy hatched by the Christians (of America) and the Jews (of Israel) to “defame Islam” and use the globally televised images of the imploding twin towers as justification for the US-led “war against Muslims”. The first time I heard this astonishing fiction was in Cairo where I had arrived soon after the terrifying attack, led by an Egyptian, Mohammed Atta, on the World Trade Center, one of the symbols of American power. The war in Iraq had not yet begun but the Taliban hoodlums, including Mullah Omar, were fleeing Afghanistan to save their lives. The fall of a ‘model Islamic state’ and the walloping the ‘soldiers of god’ were receiving from the invading kafirs had greatly distressed my friends in the Muslim Brotherhood who had wrongly believed that the flattening of the twin towers would signal the liberation of Cairo, not Kabul. Instead, they were shocked to see a tsunami of anger striking Arab shores. Rather than accept the 9/11 attacks had proved to be counter-productive, they chose the path of denial. Whispered allegations, anonymous e-mail and stories buried in the inside pages of Arabic newspapers began to do the rounds, spreading the patently false claim that the attack on the twin towers and the Pentagon had been planned and executed by the Americans and the Israelis. To substantiate this absurd claim, there were further absurd claims — Jews did not report for work on that fateful day, only the Mossad could have carried out an operation of this scale, the CIA had ensured the hijackers would not be frisked, etc. I found the assertions mildly repugnant and largely amusing, attributing the fiction to the street Arab’s lack of access to facts.
Seven years later, when I hear that absurd claim being repeated, that too by those who should know better, I don’t feel amused, but irritated. And so it happened at the conference on radical Islam when a professor of Jamia Millia Islamia questioned the authenticity of events as they unfolded on September 11, 2001, two of his colleagues nodding their heads vigorously in approval. My irritation gave way to anger when he went on to suggest that analyses of video images of the hijacked aircraft being flown into the twin towers showed they were “studio-generated”. Only someone who has undergone lobotomy would say something so stupid in public. But more than being silly, there’s a sinister purpose to such comments and they should not be attributed to a lobotomised brain; Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil would vouch for this. A lie repeated again and again, as Paul Joseph Goebbels proved through word and deed, tends to be believed by the masses. Islamofascists, both at home and abroad, who peddle the myth that ‘Islam is the solution’ and thus see nothing wrong with the ghastly crimes committed in the name of Islam, would naturally take to Goebbelsian propaganda tactics like a duck takes to water. Fiction propagated slyly at conferences and seminars, mentioned between the lines in newspaper articles, and slipped into Friday sermons by mullahs after the jumma namaaz, acquires a certain legitimacy and is soon perceived as fact.
We have seen this happen on more than one occasion. When Hindus were forced to flee their ancestral homes in the Kashmir Valley by killer squads of Islamists who indulged in rapacious depredations and revelled in the slaughter of innocent men, women and children, an insidious campaign was launched, pinning the blame on Mr Jagmohan, then Governor of Jammu & Kashmir: He was accused of telling the Hindus to flee the Valley. Strangely, this fiction was believed by the secular intelligentsia which, in any event, is desperate to clutch at straws to absolve Islamic fanatics of their crimes and eager to paint Islamist marauders in the most glowing of colours. Similar tactics were — and continue to be — used in the wake of the slaughter of kar sevaks in Godhra and to tar Hindus by blaming them for the violence that followed. After the bombing of commuter trains in Mumbai, killing 187 people, it was blatantly suggested by our homegrown Islamists that the massacre was the handiwork of either “Government agencies” or “Hindu organisations”.
They are now using the same tactics in their response to the jihadi attack on Jaipur on May 14, in which at least 80 people were killed and many more maimed. The Hindustan Express, a Delhi-based Urdu newspaper, pontificated in an editorial comment on May 16, “Apart from elements like Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Al Qaeda or HuJI (who may possibly be involved in these explosions) why should we not think also of those international powers and agencies who are known to the Government for their discomfort towards Indo-Pak peace?” Why not, indeed! The Jamaat-e-Islami’s biweekly journal, Daawat, was nauseatingly sly in its comments on May 19, “The truth cannot be out without changing the formula for the probe into the bomb blasts. Instead of going through the formality of a probe and connecting the links, we will have to see which group of people gets political benefit out of such incidents.” The only group that stands to benefit from the bloodbath in Jaipur, the Jamaat-e-Islami, whose mullahs pretend to be as innocent as Goldilocks, needs to be told, comprises those who subscribe to the slogan, “Islam is the solution.”
These are the people who are at ease with explosives being strapped to an eight-year-old girl and the button on the remote control being pushed as she reaches out to take a chocolate from a soldier (not an American) in Iraq. They are untouched and unmoved by the sight of the blood of innocent victims, as was spilled on the streets of Jaipur, of their perverse ideology. They are fully aware of their criminal misdeeds, but they want us to believe they are not to blame. And if you dare point a finger at radical Islam and its army of Islamofascists, they will accuse you of indulging in Islamophobia.
It’s time we called their bluff. The only other option is to subjugate ourselves to those who know no mercy and meekly accept Islam as the solution.

Coffee Break / Sunday Pioneer / May 25, 2008

Islamofascism, not Islamophobia, is the problem

Our liberty and future are at stake
The resolution adopted by Muslim theologians representing the various schools of Islam at the All-India Anti-terrorism Conference organised by Darul Uloom, Deoband, ‘denouncing’ terrorism but condoning radical Islam’s ghastly excesses, apart from remaining silent on Islamist terrorism in India which continues to extract a terrible price, is of a piece with the Observatory Report on Islamophobia released by the Organisation of Islamic Conference at its recent meeting in Dakar, Senegal. Both documents seek to justify manufactured Muslim rage and lay the blame for the resultant death and destruction at the doors of everybody else but Muslims.
It is ironical that Darul Uloom, Deoband, should have taken it upon itself to preach to others the virtues of tolerance — Deobandis are known for neither tolerating others or their faith nor allowing Muslims the freedom to subscribe to modernism and its attendant values. Indeed, Deobandi madarsas at home and abroad, especially in Pakistan, are known to breed Islamofascists whose dark thoughts and darker deeds generate Islamophobia against which the OIC has demanded an international law. Of course, Islamofascism must remain unrestrained and Islamofascists must be allowed the right to practice their ideology of hate. To contest this would amount to Islamophobia, and Islamophobes, as we have now been told, have no right to exist. So, like the proverbial lamb, we should meekly surrender to our slaughter. The least we can do is believe the bogus declaration issued by mullahs who gathered at Darul Uloom, Deoband.
Here’s a confession: There was a time of innocence when I believed in the thesis that there is more than one Islam. There were those with whom you could swap ideas, share jokes and even the cup that cheers. A decade later, during which time I spent three years in Cairo and travelled more than once into the heart of Islam — well, almost, since non-Muslims are not allowed beyond Jeddah, the gateway to Mecca and Medina — I stand converted to the view that any talk of there being a moderate Islam or Islam as a religion of peace merely because of the salutation sa’laam is so much bunkum.
In any event, the ummah sees Islam as a religion that demands absolute submission, which is not really the same as a religion that is predicated on peace and equality. And although the Quran does not stress on compulsion, it does not overflow with kindness towards those who do not submit to god’s will either. The best they can hope for is to be protected by a treaty (dhimmah), which in this day and age would mean unlimited appeasement, and the privileges of the dhimmi are purchased by paying jiziya apart from humiliating conditions of subservience, for instance communal budgeting and a ‘Muslim first’ policy, as is being done in our country.
The manufactured rage over Pope Benedictine’s comments at a German university about how the Sword of Islam cleared the way for Islam’s march beyond Arabia — he was quoting from an obscure Byzantine text — revived memories of the late Aurobindo Ghosh (he spent his last years waging an intellectual battle against Islamofascism from his perch in Texas) and his painstaking research to prove that Islam and peace never co-existed; that the sword of Islam is as much a reality today as it was in the distant past. In a sense, he was right, as much as the Byzantine text the Pope quoted is correct in pitilessly stating a fact that we tend to overlook in our zeal to draw distinctions between moderate and fanatical Islam to cover up for the crimes of the latter more than anything else.
Indeed, India’s history records this fact in the most lurid colours. The mass slaughter of Hindu men and enslavement of Hindu women and children, the destruction of Hindu antiquities and temples (of which the best examples are Somnath, Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura), the brutal efforts to efface Hindu tradition and the rapacious means adopted to expand the frontiers of Islamic rule — Jadunath Sarkar and RC Majumdar have chronicled how Muslim invaders, and later those who sat on the masnad of Delhi, were relentlessly engaged in waging jihad against Hindus — are too well-known to require elaboration.
The bloodletting in Jammu & Kashmir, the ethnic cleansing of the Valley to lay the foundation of Nizam-e-Mustafa, the bombings in Mumbai and elsewhere, the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh and Malaysia by preachers of fanatical Islam who have now come to dominate the centrestage of politics in those countries and the pathetic, craven approach of accommodation and concession adopted by the political class of India which was, and continues to be, reluctant to confront the truth, should fashion any honest critique of Islamism and highlight its fascist character. This is not about indulging in Islamophobia, which so agitates the OIC and its cheerleaders, but about coming to grips with the true dimensions of Islamofascism, which should be of over-riding concern for those who believe in freedom and cherish the values of modernism that collectively form the foundation of free and plural societies.
Yes, there will be strident criticism and staunch opposition to any attempt to expose Islamofascism for what it is. And the most strident criticism and the staunchest opposition will not come from the OIC and the mullahs of Darul Uloom, Deoband, but from those who wilfully ignore facts to foist fiction which encourages bigoted hate mongers to typecast those who are appalled by Islamofascism as Islamophobes. The protest will primarily come from two quarters:

• The Lib-Left intelligentsia, which continues to labour under the self-perpetuating myth that all of Islam is a religion of peace and only an insignificant, fringe minority is to be blamed for distorting the great faith that was born in the sterile sands of Arabia; and,
• The so-called moderate Muslims who till now have skilfully used doublespeak to position themselves as representatives of the ummah, more so in liberal democracies. Their status is now seriously threatened by those who have no hesitation in acknowledging the true nature of Islam both as a faith and a weapon of subjugation.

Those who believe in liberty and freedom of thought need not fear either. Being charged with Islamophobia is a small price to pay for securing our future.

April 30, 2008.

OIC's sinister message

OIC's sinister message
The Organisation of Islamic Conference, whose membership is understandably restricted to 57 Islamic countries, at its meeting in Dakar, Senegal, over Thursday and Friday, has released a report that stands out for its remarkable casuistry. The 'Observatory Report on Islamophobia', a bulky document that lists a variety of imaginary grievances to make the point that Islam is being defamed and Muslims are being discriminated against, is of a piece with the OIC's untiring efforts to promote imagined victimhood as a convenient cover to justify Islamist terror.
In the past, the OIC has lashed out at India for 'suppressing' Muslim aspirations in Jammu & Kashmir; it has now lashed out at the entire world (barring, of course, those countries where Islam rules) for "defamation of Islam and racial intolerance of Muslims". The bulk of the OIC's anger is directed at "Western societies", but that is essentially because it wishes to play to the gallery and reflect the "concerns of the Islamic ummah". The report, however, should cause concern across the world, not least because it seeks a "binding legal instrument" that will delegitimise "negative political and media discourse" on issues with which Islam and Muslims are intimately associated, severely restrict freedom of expression, and force universal acceptance of, if not compliance with, all that is claimed in the name of Islam.
A fortnight before the official unveiling of this compendium of rant against the free world and denunciation of open and plural societies, the OIC Ambassadorial Group at the United Nations issued a statement on Islamophobia in New York on February 29. The statement is a summary of the obnoxious contents of the OIC report; its tone is belligerent and dismissive of dissenting opinion. "The Group is particularly and deeply alarmed by the intensification of the campaign against Islam, as it impairs Muslims' enjoyment of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and impedes their ability to observe, practice and manifest their religion freely and without fear of coercion, violence or reprisal," the statement says.
The statement and the report, however, are deliberately silent on non-Muslims being denied the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion - for instance, as has been denied to the Pandits of Kashmir Valley and is now being denied to Hindus in Islamic countries like Malaysia - and thus impeding their ability to observe, practice and manifest their religion freely and without fear of coercion. This is not surprising as the OIC is known for speaking with a forked tongue. Nor is it surprising that it should seek to bring into popular usage a neologism like 'Islamophobia' that serves its sinister agenda, while insisting that others like 'Islamofascism', along with 'radical Islam' and 'Islamic terrorism', must be banned from public discourse. Those who persist with using these terms shall be seen as, and held guilty of, Islamophobia. Terror has a new identity.
Ironically, what Europe is now being accused of owes its origin to entirely misplaced European, more specifically British, faith in 'multiculturalism' which has become the magic password to escape censure for indulging in Islamofascism, the ideology of those who subscribe to radical Islamism. The world first heard of Islamophobia when the Runnymede Trust set up the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia in 1996, much before New York's Twin Towers and the London Underground were bombed. It is no less ironical that the commission's report, 'Islamophobia: A challenge for us all', was released in 1997 in the House of Commons by then Home Secretary Jack Straw. In October 2006, Mr Straw was pitilessly denounced by those who claim to be victims of Islamophobia in Britain and abroad for daring to describe the Islamic veil as a "visible statement of separation and of difference".
By 2004, it was felt necessary to denounce Islamophobia to keep Islamofascists in good humour. In May that year the Council of Europe summit formally "condemned Islamophobia". Seven months later, Mr Kofi Annan, who brought shame and disgrace to his office as UN Secretary-General, gave it the stamp of international recognition by presiding over a conference on 'Confronting Islamophobia'. Between then and now, it has become fashionable to condemn any criticism of radical Islamism and fanaticism of the variety practiced and exported by Saudi Arabia, as Islamophobia, much the same way it is considered politically correct to describe the terrorism of Hamas and Hizbullah as "resistance against Zionism".
The truth is that Islamophobia is not about 'undue fear of Islam'. Well-known scholar Daniel Pipes, who is known to berate those who use Islam to justify their perversions, but not Islam (that has not prevented the OIC from naming him, along with Samuel P Huntington, author of The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, and eminent historian Bernard Lewis, as an Islamophobe) says, "While prejudice against Islam certainly exists, Islamophobia deceptively conflates two distinct phenomena: Fear of Islam and fear of radical Islam." So, those who feel repelled by the ideology of radical Islamism and fear the terrible consequences of not putting down its practitioners, are also accused of Islamophobia. Similarly, it has become a convenient tool to silence critics of Islam and reformists within the ummah. It equates freedom to question with racism.
Worse, it gives fanatics the right to abuse others and vilify their faith, secure in the knowledge that anybody who dares protest will be branded an Islamophobe. When Britain toyed with the idea of adopting a law against hate speech, this point was made eloquently by Mr Azzam Tamimi, a senior member of the Muslim Association of Britain, who insisted that while the law should gag critics of Islam, it should not prevent Muslims from berating other religions since it is their 'duty' to do so, or from glorifying Palestinian suicide bombers because, as he put it, "We love death, they love life." Mr Tamimi, curiously, is a leading light of the 'Stop the War Coalition'.
Similarly, criticism of textbooks used in a London school funded by Saudi Arabia, describing Jews as "repugnant" and Christians as "pigs", would be considered Islamophobia, as would any attempt to rein in Islamist terrorist outfits anywhere in the world. When the British Government tried to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, it struck back by launching a 'Stop Islamophobia' campaign on British campuses. Apart from referring to the 9/11 terrorists as the "magnificent 19", as was done by its prominent leader Omar Bakri Mohammed, who later floated Al-Mohajiroun and now sends out e-mail 'advising' Muslim youth from his hideout in Lebanon, Hizb ut-Tahrir is guilty of practising anti-Semitism, abusing Hindus and Hinduism, and preaching that "suicide bombers go straight to heaven". To stand up to Hizb ut-Tahrir, therefore, amounts to Islamophobia.
Closer home, the Students Islamic Movement of India, which has been banned for being a terrorist organisation, insists that it is being targeted because its members are scrupulous adherents of Islam. Hence, if the OIC report is to be taken seriously and its definition of Islamophobia accepted, the order banning SIMI is a manifestation of Islamophobia. The Government of India is equally guilty of Islamophobia for providing dissident Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen with a resident permit. And, those in media who refuse to endorse the humiliation of Gudiyas and the persecution of Imranas by the ulema, and believe there is a connection between radical Islamism and Islamist terrorism, stand accused of "targeting Muslims and Islam".
We can afford to ignore the ringing message from Dakar only at the expense of the values that set us apart from those who decree that a woman who has been raped should be publicly flogged, if not stoned to death.

Artistic freedom yes, but not with Aurangzeb

Artistic freedom yes, but not with Aurangzeb
Artistic freedom in increasingly 'secular' India has come to mean the right to denigrate Jesus Christ and Goddess Shakti, as was done by a callow student of the fine arts faculty of Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda last year. But permission to exhibit exquisite miniatures and firmans related to Aurangzeb has been denied, because 15 Muslims and a bogus nawab have demanded so.
French journalist Francois Gautier's Foundation Against Continuing Terrorism (FACT) has painstakingly -- and at great expense -- put together a collection of 40 miniatures and firmans that tell the story of Aurangzeb's rule. The exhibition is called Aurangzeb as he was according to Mughal records. "We have taken care to present all facets of Aurangzeb, including his piety," says Gautier.
The collection was first exhibited to critical acclaim at the Habitat Centre in New Delhi. It next travelled to Pune where one lakh people visited the show. It was equally well received in Bangalore where the popular Gallery G hosted the exhibition. FACT then decided to take the collection to Chennai where it was supposed to be exhibited at the Lalit Kala Akademi from March 3 to 9.
The exhibition was inaugurated by N Vittal, former Chief Vigilance Commissioner, and B Raman, security expert and former R&AW official, March 3 at 5 pm. Some 100 people attended the inauguration. Since March 4, a continuous stream of people came to see the exhibits.
On March 5, a group of 15 Muslims (Gautier says "they were no more than six") affiliated to the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam, Manitha Neethi Paasarai and other Muslim organisations, entered the exhibition hall and confronted FACT volunteers who were present there. Raising their voice, they rubbished the show and alleged that it did not portray the right image of 'their' Aurangzeb.
"They threatened they wouldn't allow the show to go on, that they would send hundreds of protesters after Friday prayers from a nearby mosque," says Gautier. The organisers lodged a complaint with the local police station and the next day policemen were posted at Lalit Kala Akademi.
Meanwhile, RM Palaniappan, manager of Lalit Kala Akademi, rattled by the protest by 15 men, asked FACT to pack up and leave. He panicked after Assistant Commissioner of Police KN Murali visited the exhibition hall, had a cursory look at the miniatures and firmans (written in Persian and hence unintelligible to him), worked himself into a rage and shouted at the organisers, lacing his diatribe with expletives, before stomping off, threatening to return.
On March 6, Prince of Arcot Nawab Mohammed Abdul Ali made a surprise visit to the exhibition at 3 pm. After spending some time looking at the miniatures and the firmans, he lashed out at FACT volunteers and accused them of "misrepresenting facts". He was particularly enraged by two miniatures -- the first depicted Aurangzeb's army destroying the Somnath temple and the second showed the destruction of the Kesava Rai temple in Mathura.
He insisted that the paintings amounted to "fabrication and distortion of history" and that Aurangzeb had never done anything to harm the Hindus. He demanded that the exhibition be immediately shut down and said he would take up the issue with "higher authorities" in the State Government. Later, the 'Prince of Arcot' issued a Press statement, claiming, "the exhibition seemed to dwell only on Aurangazeb's alleged misdeeds and not a word about his munificent contribution. The exhibition would only promote enmity between various groups."
By Thursday, March 7, "higher authorities" in Tamil Nadu Government had issued instructions to the police to shut down the exhibition. Murali, along with his men, stormed into the exhibition hall on Thursday evening and began taking down the paintings. "He was looking for the paintings showing the destruction of Somnath and Kesava Rai temples. He threw them to the floor," said a FACT volunteer.
The police say they acted after receiving "three complaints that the show would disturb communal harmony". They wanted the exhibition to be shut down immediately as the next day was Friday. The police also forcibly took into custody three FACT volunteers -- Saraswathi (65), D Vijayalakshmi (62) and Malathi (47) -- although women cannot be detained after sunset in police stations. They were not allowed to contact their families.
The hall has been sealed and FACT has no idea about the fate of the paintings and other exhibits, including the priceless firmans. "I am told some of the paintings have been damaged beyond repair. This is shocking, especially because what we have witnessed is vandalism by the police," says Gautier.

Mullah raj in Marxist Bengal

Surrendering to thugocracy
Kanchan Gupta

In recent days there have been two riots in two cities in two countries with two starkly dissimilar responses. Muslim mobs ran riot in Kolkata on November 21, ostensibly to protest against Marxist violence in the villages of Nandigram in which their co-religionists were targeted. But the thugs who swarmed the streets of central Kolkata, armed with swords, Molotov cocktails and assorted weapons, had an insidious agenda: To drive dissident Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen out of the city. The 'progressive', 'democratic', 'liberal' and so-called people's Government of West Bengal, headed by a charlatan and dominated by the CPI(M), used the fig leaf of 'Muslim discontent' to force Ms Nasreen to leave Kolkata, choosing to mollycoddle radical Islamists rather than stand up to their outrageous hooliganism in the hope that Muslims will make common cause with Marxists when elections are held.
Twenty-one years ago the CPI(M) had accused Rajiv Gandhi of abjectly surrendering to fundamentalists and using the Congress's brute majority in Parliament to subvert the Supreme Court's landmark judgement in the Shah Bano case by pushing through a particularly obnoxious law known as Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, stripping indigent women thrown out of their marital home the right to justice guaranteed by the Constitution of India. Today, the CPI(M) stands accused of pandering to bigotry that recalls the violent demonstrations following the Supreme Court's judgement favouring Shah Bano.
The other riot took place in Villiers-le-Bel, north of Paris, part of the infamous banlieues where Muslim immigrants, most of them illegal residents, from northern Africa live in appalling ghettos and seek inspiration from fire-breathing mullahs. This time the rioting was far worse than that of November 2005: Not only were cars set on fire, policemen were attacked by young men armed with guns. This was a first of its kind, prompting otherwise politically correct news agencies to report that the police were locked in a combat with "urban guerrillas".
The banlieues have been in ferment ever since President Nicolas Sarkozy, after winning this summer's election, set a target for authorities to deport 25,000 illegal immigrants, irrespective of their nationality or religion, by the end of the year. In 2005, Mr Sarkozy, as Minister for Interior Affairs, had taken a tough line and cracked down on the rioters with an iron fist. He has scoffed at lib-left criticism that his policy "threatens values in a nation that prides itself on being a cradle of human rights and a land of asylum". We get to hear a similar refrain every time an attempt is made to identify illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in our country. But while our Government promptly retreats (the BJP was no better than the Congress during the years it was in power at the Centre) in the face of hostility, Mr Sarkozy's Government has refused to budge from its stated policy. "I want numbers," Mr Sarkozy has been quoted by the BBC as telling Mr Brice Hortefeux, head of the Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development, which he set up after taking office in May. "This is a campaign commitment. The French expect (action) on this." Compare this resolve with our political parties dumping their campaign commitments in the nearest dustbin after winning an election, substituting them with crass populism.
If Mr Sarkozy had nothing but contempt for the rioters in 2005, this time he has been scathing in his indictment of those who took to the streets. While giving a pep talk to policemen in Paris, he brushed aside pseudo-sociological bunkum and bogus multi-culturalism. "What happened in Villiers-le-Bel has nothing to do with a social crisis. It has everything to do with a thugocracy," Mr Sarkozy said. In 2005, Mr Sarkozy had described the rioters as "racaille", or scum. "I reject any form of other-worldly naivety that wants to see a victim of society in anyone who breaks the law, a social problem in any riot," he said, adding, "The response to the riots isn't yet more money on the backs of the taxpayers. The response to the riots is to arrest the rioters."
Would our politicians, especially those in power, ever dare be even remotely as tough as Mr Sarkozy? That's a silly question. Because in this great 'democracy' of ours, violence is the language of negotiation for those who reject the supremacy of the Constitution of India and Government, denuded of authority, believes toeing the line of least resistance is the best policy. Hence, even before push comes to shove, Government crumbles in the most shameful manner.
But we are not alone in witnessing the state turn into a jellybean when confronted by radical Islamism and its attendant perversities. Look at the timid response of the British Government to the plight of one of its citizens, Ms Gillian Gibbons, who has been jailed for 'blasphemy' in Sudan. Her crime: She had asked children in her class to find a name for their teddy bear and they came up with 'Mohammed' because they had been taught by their parents that it was the "most loved name" and they loved their teddy, too. The parents screamed murder and soon Ms Gibbons was in the custody of the upholders of shari'ah.
Everybody, including Sudan's envoy to the Queen's court, agreed that it was a silly accusation, that Ms Gibbons was at best guilty of letting innocent children have their way, and that no great harm had been done. To prove that trials in Khartoum's shari'ah court are fair, Ms Gibbons was sentenced to 15 days in prison, instead of being whipped in a public square or sentenced to death.
On Friday, a leading cleric, Sheikh Abdul Jalil Karuri, gave a fiery sermon during noon prayers at Khartoum's Martyr's Mosque, accusing Ms Gibbons of "deliberately naming her class's teddy bear Mohammed with the intention of insulting Islam". Soon, thousands of people, waving swords, were marching through Khartoum, demanding Ms Gibbons be shot. Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Boris Johnson has lamented Britain's limp response: "There was a time when Britain would have sent a gunboat to rescue her. There was a time when MPs would have been holding furious debates on the matter, and bandying phrases such as 'civis Britannicus sum'. In the old days there would have been a démarche from Britain to Sudan, warning that His Majesty's Government would not suffer a hair on her head to be disturbed."
At least Johnson has the comfort of history. We don't even have that.

December 2, 2007.

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Coffee Break

'Arab Pardha' smothers India

Kanchan Gupta

Every time I visit Kerala, which I have been doing quite frequently these past two-and-a-half-years, I am struck by the rapid Islamisation of 'God's Own Country'. The rain-gorged verdant plains and hills along the lush Malabar coast are fast turning into the billious green of radical Islam. Roadside brick-and-mortar glass-fronted shrines dedicated to Virgin Mary with flickering candles lit by the devout and ancient temples with amazing hand-crafted brassware and bell metal utensils that once celebrated the Hinduness of Kerala are overshadowed by spanking new mosques that seem to be mushrooming all over the place. Not only are they built with Arab money -- donations by Muslim Malayalees working in Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, add up to only a fraction of the cost -- but they also symbolise the increasing influence of Arab 'culture', which is largely about visible manifestations of Islam and Islamism, that threatens to stamp out Kerala's rich indigenous culture rooted in India's civilisational past.
Huge billboards, advertising 'Arab Pardha' in English and Arabic, now jostle for space along with those advertising jewellery, new apartment blocks and investment schemes. The 'Arab Pardha' billboards are illustrated with larger than life images of women clad in head-to-toe burqas: They look shapeless and formless, their identity smothered by black fabric and their eyes barely visible through slits. "Arab Pardha", declares one billboard, "All pious women should wear it". The copywriter has it all wrong; it should have read, "All pious women should disappear behind it." For, that's what the burqa is meant for -- to make women disappear, make them invisible, deny them the right to exist as individuals. Any argument to the contrary is spurious and any religious edict cited in support of this grotesque suppression of individual liberty is specious. But there is a larger purpose behind propagating the 'Arab Pardha', or purdah, which is insidious and frightening for those who value freedom. This is one of the many instruments adopted by Islamists to push their agenda of radicalising Muslims and imposing their worldview on others without so much as even a token resistance by either civil society or the state. The darkness of the world in which they live is now being forced on us. Decades ago Nirad C Chaudhuri was to record in his memorable essay, The Continent of Circe, "Whenever in the streets of Delhi I see a Muslim woman in a burqa, the Islamic veil, I apostrophise her mentally: 'Sister! you are the symbol of your community in India.' The entire body of Muslims are under a black veil." The Continent of Circe was first published in 1966; forty-one years later, the community wants the black veil, the 'Arab Pardha', to envelope 'secular' India.
Kerala's 'Arab Pardha' billboards are a taunting reminder that in 'secular' India we must remain mute witness to the communalisation of culture, politics and society by peddlers of Islamism and its offensive agenda that is rooted in the most obnoxious interpretation of what Mohammed preached millennia ago. Even the economy has not been spared: Islamic banking, Islamic investments and Islamic financial instruments have surreptitiously entered this country under the benign gaze of an indulgent UPA Government whose Prime Minister spends sleepless nights agonising over the plight of Islamic terrorists and demands that all Government initiatives must be anchored in his perverse 'Muslims first' policy. The Prime Minister's admirers claim he is a "sensitive person" who is easily moved by the "plight of the helpless". Had he been moved by the pathetic sight of a Muslim woman, as much an Indian as all of us, forced to wear an 'Arab Pardha', his claimed sensitivities would have carried conviction. But such expression of sympathy, if not resolve to combat the insidious gameplan of Islamists inspired by hate-mongers and preachers of intolerance who draw their sustenance from the fruit of the poison tree of Wahaabism that flourishes in the sterile sands of Arabia, would demand a great degree of intellectual integrity and moral courage. The Prime Minister may be an "accidental politician", but he is a practitioner of politics of cynicism. For that, you neither need intellectual integrity nor moral courage.
Every time there is criticism of the Islamic veil, which comes in various forms of indignity -- the hijab, the niqab, the burqa, the chador -- whether from within or outside the Muslim community, we hear the frayed argument: It's a matter of personal choice; it's an expression of religiosity; it's culture-specific; it's a minority community's right, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. All that and more is balderdash, not least because there is no Quranic injunction that mandates a Muslim woman to wear an 'Islamic' veil. Just as there is nothing Quranic about the cruel and mind-numbing practice of female circumcision which is carried out in the name of Islam and to force women to be pious and faithful! Given the nature of the community's social hierarchy and the grip of the mullahs, rarely does a woman protest, leave alone rebel. Those who do, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somalian activist whose book The Caged Virgin provides a revealing insight into Islamism's warped religio-political ideology, are hounded and live in perpetual fear of losing their lives. Blasphemy is not tolerated by those who live in a world darker than the darkest burqa, a world in which even Barbie wears the Islamic veil lest her plastic modesty be compromised.
But this is not only about the denial of an individual's liberty, nor is it about the suppression of human rights in the name of faith. It is about the in-your-face declaration of Islamists that they can have their way without so much as lifting their little finger. It is a laughable sight to watch Malayalees trying to navigate crowded streets in Kochi wearing white Arab gelabayas, the loose kaftan like dress that along with the kafeyah has become a symbol of trans-national radical Islam, their 'Arab Pardha' clad wives and daughters in tow. But it is not a laughable matter.
Increasingly, we are witnessing a shifting of loyalties from Malabar to Manipur. Faith in India is being transplanted by belief in Arabia. This is not good news for those who believe in the Indian nation.

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November 4, 2007.