Massacres of the 21st Century

The fledgeling 21st Century has already been marred with massacres. We have heard of Sept. 11, 2001 the most, and indeed it was a terrible atrocity. But we have failed the people of Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and Congo. Perhaps one of the most neglected and frightening systematic killings of people has been in the Indian province of Gujarat. Thanks to Amad for reminding us. In the words of the extraordinary writer Arundhati Roy, winner of the Booker Prize and more significantly the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize:

While the parallels between contemporary India and prewar Germany are chilling, they're not surprising. (The founders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh [RSS], the National Volunteer Force that is the moral and cultural guild of the BJP, have in their writings been frank in their admiration for Hitler and his methods).

Not surprisingly, she has been accused by ideologues as being both anti-Indian and anti-American, for making an association between the Right and fascism. She is so wonderfully vocal that she was censored from the Charlie Rose programme on PBS.

Why is Hitchens Not Scared of Offending Muslims?

Cervantes explains the Don's desire to leave his village and take up the profession of knighthood: "he was spurred on by the conviction that the world needed his immediate presence." (Don Quixote, Book 1, Part 2)

In a recent article, the famed film-maker John Pilger referred to a critique of British artists by Terry Eagleton in their failure to "question the Western way of life." John Pilger aptly describes rabid colonialist writers and columnists like Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens and others singled out by Eagleton in the Guardian column:

That they play their part in a broadcasting studio or in the clubbable pages of the review sections and that they think of themselves as liberals or conservatives is neither here nor there. They belong to the same crusade, waging the same battle for their enduring privilege.

Hitchens in one such writer given "tombstones of column inches in which to air his pretensions, along with his attacks on Muslims." This is John Pilger bouncing Amis, but I think it rings even truer for Christopher Hitchens. Like the derogatory viewers' feedback on Youtube aimed at Islam, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper with whom Hitchens debated about a New York student's right to dump the Qur'an. This incident is what allegedly elicited Hitchens anew "to air his pretensions, along with his attacks on Muslims." When we analyse Hitchens' columns and slurs since September 11, 2001, the day on which some of the most morally absurd intellectuals and barbie doll newsreaders decided to warn us about the "Islamist threat", which consequently fueled "our search for moderates" and "friendly communists like Maryam Namazie", it is made clear that Hitchens would squander his (and our) time in the process.

1. Afghanistan: "first country in history to be bombed out of the stone age." [This murderous passion of Hitchens reminds me of those who pride Japan's democracy to the terrible war crimes in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Of course, it is irrelevant that Afghanistan is chaotic, overrun by US-backed warlords. Ismail Khan, one of the worst, was endorsed by Rumsfeld as "an appealing man... thoughtful, measured and self-confident"].


2. Iraq: "And if they're bearing a Koran over their heart, it'll go straight through that, too. So they won't be able to say, 'Ah, I was bearing a Koran over my heart and guess what, the missile stopped halfway through.' No way, 'cause it'll go straight through that as well. They'll be dead, in other words."


3. This is a period in time when the majority of the Australian, American and British public are questioning their government policies. Hitchens has nowhere to go. One up for the Niger myth.


4. Islam has since formed an active preoccupation of Hitchens: 'Stop indulging Islamist violence', 'Jefferson versus the Muslim pirates', 'Facing the Islamist menace', 'Londonistan', 'Why are we so scared of offending Muslims?', etc. etc.

Why is Hitchens not scared of offending Muslims? Because, there is nothing unusual about offending Muslims. People have the right to critique Islam, and they indeed do that every single day. What is unethical and strange is when the criticism trespasses into an area of abuse, misrepresentation and fascist fervour. Islamophobia Watch comments that Hitchens wouldn't be "putting his name to a piece subtitled 'Why are we so scared of offending Jews?'". I think this is very true, because I recall Hitchens writing in Vanity Fair not very long ago:

The objection of these people is not really to Judaism, or even to Zionism. It's anti-Semitism pure and simple. The other name for which is racism, of the deadliest kind because it's accompanied by a direct incitement to murder. Not just discrimination, but murder.

The double standards are obvious. It is anti-Semitic to criticise Israel and Zionism, let alone Jews, but we needn't be scared of "offending" Muslims. It is alright for Hitchens to shamelessly indulge in anti-Muslim fascism because it's the norm, like it was the norm to scapegoat Jews in Europe half a century before. And armchair bombers like Hitchens, Spencer and Pipes are the champions who "dare" to offend Muslims, whilst bigotry against Islam and Muslims is almost a universal truth. How unnerving indeed!

Pipe Dreams

We recognise Daniel Pipes as an Islamophobe and a fear-mongering racist both in his personal and professional benighted reality. However, not much effort has been spared in rendering him as an idiot. I’ve previously exposed him as a fabulous intellectual engaged in struggles for free speech [just pulling your leg], and here I find myself talking about him again. I don’t wish to underestimate the bile and poison he customarily spurts in his writings or his witch-hunting campaigns on American campuses. But let me sit back for a second, and consider Pipes as an idiot and a comic relief in his own dangerous wasteland of military detention, perpetual wars and anti-Muslim fascism.

“Ah ha, and an idiot!” I can hear some of you say aloud with me. You bet, when you read the following:

One clarification: the Fox News video makes it appear that the woman screaming "Liar, Liar" (a fanatical anti-Israel, hard leftist named Greta Berlin) was addressing me. In fact, she was yelling at Wafa Sultan....

What's the background?

Along with Yaron Brook (head of the Ayn Rand Institute) and Wafa Sultan (of Al-Jazeera fame), I participated yesterday evening in a panel on 'Totalitarian Islam's Threat to the West' at the University of California at Los Angeles.

What's the joke? Daniel Pipes is touchy and embarrassed by this video, and is quick to point out that the bitter protest by the Palestinian rights activist Greta Berlin is against the silly opportunist Wafa Sultan whose appearance on Al Jazeera was edited and rehashed by the extreme disinformation Zionist media MEMRI: "either they reflect badly on the character of Arabs or they in some way further the political agenda of Israel". But the joke is on him, because we now know that Pipes is irked by conscientious protest, to the extent that he brands it as "the degradation of free speech on campus". May I ask who founded the vile witch-hunting project called Campus Watch? And it is a falsehood that protest is against free speech, because without protest there'll be no democracy, and we're seeing less and less of democracy in the United States thanks to Campus Watch and Pipes. As John Pilger says, there have always been elements of fascism in the US and I think Daniel Pipes is a fire-breathing fascist monster. What action does he advise against the protesters? That they "be disciplined and the non-students be charged with trespassing and barred from entering the campus".

Recently, the award-winning reporter Robert Fisk had this to say about Daniel Pipes:

But wait, Pipes is at it again. The director of the "Middle East Forum" has been writing in Canada's National Post about "Palestine". His piece is filled with the usual bile. Palestinian anarchy had "spewed forth" warlords. Arafat was an "evil" figure. Israeli withdrawal from Gaza had deprived Palestinians of the one "stabilising element" in the region. Phew! "Palestinianism" (whatever that is) is "superficial". Palestinian "victimisation" is a "supreme myth of modern politics". Gaza is now an "[Islamist] beachhead at the heart of the Middle East from which to infiltrate Egypt, Israel and the West Bank".

Pipe dreams about the annihilation of defenceless Palestinians and other 'counter-terrorist' operations like disciplining anti-fascists. But pipe dreams are known to come true, which is why we must continually expose Daniel Pipes and the international legion of conceited Islamophobes.

Manji on Rushdie

There are few more obnoxious people on this no-so-green-anymore planet than Irshad Manji. Driven by accolades from liberal-to-right news media like the New York Times and think-tanks, unsuccessful professors, fascists, and Zionists like Daniel Pipes, invitations to radio shows and BBC and CNN and wherever there is a bunch of right-wing sanctimonious "Westerners". I say, "Westerners" because this is what it's all about - it's in the language of Irshad Manji as she addresses the people she claims are on her side, which is far from the truth. The bottom of the article identifies her as a "Senior Fellow with the European Foundation for Democracy". There are some things to ponder:

1. Is Irshad Manji a European?
2. What European ideals or goals does she support?
3. What makes her join the European class?

A perusal through her writings and site yields the following results: No, she isn't a European but she supports those Europeans who are "at the top" i.e. war-mongers, anti-Muslim bigots, racists of every kind, Zionists and fascists. One could well imagine her on a paid position under Hitler, demonising Jews. But the not-so-green-anymore planet has revolved so many times since then that she finds herself on the side of Jews. Not all Jews, not the good Jews, those who exhibit humanity and faith. But mostly the secular-minded Jews who support apartheid, anti-Arab racism and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian Arabs who were driven out of their homes into a ghetto, by like-minded people who are delighted by the lies of Irshad Manji. In fact, her article starts with an apparent lie:

Growing up in Vancouver, I attended an Islamic school every Saturday. There, I learned that Jews cannot be trusted because they worship “moolah, not Allah,” meaning money, not God. According to my teacher, every last Jew is consumed with business.

She generalises about all the folks in her schools. It is crazy to assume this is true. But for the naïve Western reader, it becomes a fact. You don't have to question any Cold War propaganda. A propaganda becomes a fact. Irshad Manji becomes "an extraordinary brave woman" for standing up to those Muslims. She becomes "an extraordinary brave woman" unlike those Muslim women who actually stand up for what is right without being paid a single cent, who take bruises for their bravery but their fault is that they don't blame Islam, because they know that there are bad people in every country and religion. And they read the Qur'an and they learn Arabic unlike fear-mongers like Irshad Manji. She writes:

On Monday, Pakistan’s religious affairs minister said that in light of how Rushdie has blasphemed Islam with provocative literature, it is understandable why angry Muslims would commit suicide bombings over his knighthood.

Members of Parliament, as well as the Pakistani government, amplified the condemnation of Britain, feeding cries of offense to Muslim sensibilities from Europe to Asia.

As a Muslim, you better believe I am offended – by these absurd reactions.

I am offended that it is not the first time honours from the West have met with vitriol and violence.

The "honours from the West" that Irshad Manji overlooks is that on the same day this offensive announcement was made, which it indeed was, other "honours from the West" included three missiles from a US drone smashing into a school. Thirty innocent civilians died. Not a peep from Irshad Manji or any of those opportunists who used the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001 for purposes that included making money and earning contracts. This was achieved through fear-mongering and demonising Muslims by allegedly personal stories of woe. Hirsi Ali is an example of another dishonest opportunist much loved by the fascist Daniel Pipes.

I am offended that every year, there are more women killed in Pakistan for allegedly violating their family’s honour than there are detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Muslims have rightly denounced the mistreatment of Guantanamo prisoners. But where is our outrage over the murder of many more Muslims at the hands of our own?

Unlike Irshad Manji who supports war and racism, many Muslims protest the mistreatment of fellow Muslims and non-Muslims.

I am offended that on Sunday, at least 35 Muslims in Kabul were blown to bits by other Muslims and on Tuesday, 87 more in Baghdad by Islamic “insurgents”, with no official statement from Pakistan to deplore these assaults on fellow believers. I am offended that amid the internecine carnage, a professed atheist named Salman Rushdie tops the to-do list.

Above all, I am offended that so many other Muslims are not offended enough to emonstrate widely against God’s self-appointed ambassadors. We complain to the world that Islam is being exploited by fundamentalists, yet when reckoning with the opportunity to resist their clamour en masse, we fall curiously silent. In a battle between flaming fundamentalists and mute moderates, who do you think is going to win?

She is always offended by the actions of Muslims because she is addressing a Western audience. If she said: "I am offended that many Muslims were blown to bits by daisy cutters and cluster bombs", her contracts to write for any of those "free media" would be revoked and you would never hear from her again. A very shrewd writer, eh? Moreover, she twists the sectarian killers into "Islamic" insurgents, who are run not by the people or Iraq but Washington's appointed puppets. Have a go at Washington, Ma'am. I hear you're very brave. And the "professsed atheist named Salman Rushdie" will take the names of all those innocents killed on his conscience as he supported the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq on..."humane" grounds, if he wasn't pompous already.

In that spirit, it is high time to “ban” hypocrisy under the banner of Islam. Salman Rushdie is not the problem. Muslims are.

After all, the very first bounty on Rushdie's head was worth £1 million. It increased to £1.25 million; then higher. The chief benefactor, Iran's government, claimed to have profitably invested the principal. Hence the rising value of the reward. Looks like Jews are not the only people handy at business.

The last sentence proves she is an anti-Semite. This is really hilarious. Did she not phrase it well or what? Read the last sentence carefully, my readers, and relate it to the first paragraph of her article. The Zionists she panders to will obviously disregard it in line with their collaboration with Nazis, but what about us Jews and Muslims? One wonders what her secret views are on Christians, which may just pop out when she's gulping down too much of vodka.

Londonistan on Fascist’s Map

Londonistan is a hotspot on the map of fascists. For the rest of us, it doesn’t exist. We know there is a place called London, the capital of Britain, where a fictional character called Sherlock Holmes solved complicated crimes; and it was also the headquarter of countless pompous imperialists who laid to waste countless lands inhabited by coloured peoples. But as for Londonistan, no Ma’am, I haven’t heard of such a place. Are you telling me it’s there? What? Melanie Philips’ Atlas. Christopher Hitchens’ Atlas, Ed. 2. I’ll have to check the library database for some fascists’ maps.

Hitchens’ article Londonistan Calling is illustrated by a picture of incensed Muslims threatening violence against those insulting Islam. What the picture leaves out (and for good reason) is 99.999999 percent of Muslims working in the office, buying grocery, playing with their children or talking to their spouses and saying salaam (peace) to their neighbours. Rather than reflect reality, the picture mirrors Hitchens’ hatred, prejudice, Islamophobia; and if we’re to record the tempo of his frustration, a deep-seated fascism. I don’t want to waste too much of my time rebuking this person who has such a disturbing tendency, not with my end-of-semester essays, but I’ll say ‘hi!’ to some of his venomous, at times subtle, rot.

Returning to the old place after a long absence, I found that it was the scent of Algeria that now predominated along the main thoroughfare of Blackstock Road. This had had a good effect on the quality of the coffee and the spiciness of the grocery stores. But it felt odd, under the gray skies of London, to see women wearing the veil, and even swathed in the chador or the all-enveloping burka. Many of these Algerians, Bangladeshis, and others are also refugees from conflict in their own country. Indeed, they have often been the losers in battles against Middle Eastern and Asian regimes which they regard as insufficiently Islamic. Quite unlike the Irish and the Cypriots, they bring these far-off quarrels along with them. And they also bring a religion which is not ashamed to speak of conquest and violence.

With a guy who imbibes great quantities of alcohol (this is not an ad hominem attack on Hitchens but a fact), the scent of Algeria (how exotic) may indeed be disturbing. And what’s Hitchens hassle if the women are wearing the “all-enveloping burka”? On one hand you have the Taliban and Washington’s chums the Afghan warlords who force women to wear the burka and on the other hand you have so-called feminists like Hitchens who find it disturbing that women in London are wearing the veil but not disturbing that he supported the bombing of women in Iraq, bombs which tore through the veils of women and laid everything bare, the skin and bones. Drink your fill, Hitchens, your liberation is appreciated. Your notion that Islam should be ashamed for your imagined violence and conquest is indeed shameful, but on your part. The land on which you currently write your Cold War thesis is the United States. You and your friends in Washington brought your ideas of conquest and violence from Europe. The Native Americans, who are and always will be the original Americans no matter how many more you massacre at South Dakota, didn’t dock a single canoe on Ferdinand’s ugly foot.

In much of his fear-mongering article, Hitchens, having nothing standard to say, raves about “British jihadists”, and with no real substance overplays the role of a few infamous British Muslims, trying to extend the Islamophobic guarantee to the rest of the British Muslim population. But he fails miserably as usual. Remembering his deceitful manoeuvre to link Iraq’s WMD myth to Niger still gives me the odd chuckle.

Another atrocious personal characteristic of Hitchens is his fear of "loneliness" in his hatred and Islamophobia. This is especially striking in his fascination with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was used (for her hatred) and kicked out of the Netherlands; and is now employed at an American think-tank, and you can bet she is rubbishing Muslim immigrants and receiving the almighty dollar. This fascination can be best witnessed with people having Muslim names but Western-oriented like Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi and Monica Ali.

Hitchens is also unable to make powerful conclusions, though he seems a rather gifted fear-monger:

I find myself haunted by a challenge that was offered on the BBC by a Muslim activist named Anjem Choudary: a man who has praised the 9/11 murders as "magnificent" and proclaimed that "Britain belongs to Allah." When asked if he might prefer to move to a country which practices Shari'a, he replied: "Who says you own Britain anyway?" A question that will have to be answered one way or another.

On one hand, Hitchens attempts to paint voices which are absurd and not reflective of the wider Muslim community as absurd and strange; and on the other hand, he extends those voices and pulls them over the face of an entire community, trapping everyone inside. And if Hitchens and like-minded people are permitted to air their fascism as if it’s conventional thought, Europe is headed into the direction of another…a word that doesn’t dare to speak its name. It may seem too far-fetched. But when you start seeing one voice as representative of all and make generally bigoted and crass statements against a religion and there are more of you, and there might be even more, baying for action against immigrants and those with less pale skin colour or a different system of belief to yourself, you are promoting a fascistic climate.

And history has shown the price people pay for fascism. If you don’t want immigrants, it’s up to the people. The only reason why people (and birds) immigrate is to live a better life. But as the Daniel Pipes quotation in If Birds Could Talk to Daniel Pipes has shown, human beings are treated far worse, as if there is no avian flu but immigrant flu. Of course, they’ll protest if you bomb their home country. It was true when Christians immigrated to Istanbul under the Ottoman Turks and it is true now for the First World countries. But don’t make laws which in any way harm the image or residence of those that are part of your country. The only way Muslim terrorism can be prevented on Western shores is if there’s no Jewish and Christian terrorism on Muslim shores. It is an uncomfortable historical truth. Common sense dictates that you don’t bomb another country to prevent another terrorist atrocity on your country, though your purpose may be in money proceeds. Hitchens can’t prevent terrorism by supporting terrorism himself, let alone the information on Islam he acquired from Jihad Watch or something.

Intro. to "Londonistan on Fascist’s Map": Rushdie, Hitchens and Rich Fascists

Take note: it is vogue for fascists to pronounce entire communities as "fascists". This fits into the "war on terror" propaganda. One of these evil fascists who is so guzzled with the calumnious hate phrase "fascism with an Islamic face" and fantasises about bullets penetrating through copies of the Qur’an before tearing through the flesh and bones of Iraqi resistance fighters is a man, rather say a tosspot, by the name of Christopher Hitchens. An ex-Socialist (based in London) turned neo-colonialist (based in the United States), Hitchens has spared no effort since 1989 to demonise Muslims and Islam and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). First wielding the European battleaxe, against those damn Muslims who dare protest against Salman Rushdie, along with other “enlightened bourgeois intellectuals” like Fay Weldon etc., Hitchens always evoked a totalitarian mood while claiming to be against totalitarian himself. Angry Arab who more sincerely protested against the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa has referred to Hitchens as a "great poseur". For today, Islamophobia Watcher wishes to take Hitchens up on a hate-mongering, fear-mongering article he wrote for the overrated but moneyed Vanity Fair recently.

[Before I proceed, I’d like to state that the Rushdie affair is vastly seized upon by Islamophobes of all stripes and colours, not least by Salman Rushdie himself who is himself an Islamophobe though he may describe me as “philistine, reductionist” for levelling this accusation, all the while Rushdie sitting smug on his couch with a ham burger and frothing about some lady in a veil who is certainly more educated than him. What’s his fetish with veil and anti-Islamic gobbledygook, I think I do understand. It’s an illness. Islamophobia is indeed an illness, a boil on the conscience. For some it’s a concept to make money, for some it’s a Cold War DNA and for some it’s like supremacist politics. For fascists, it’s some of each].