The diaspora effect
by Shiraz Maher


With half of British Muslims describing their background as Pakistani, events on the subcontinent resonate here [the UK]


It was only a matter of time before British Islamists began celebrating the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. “Allah Akbar! Best news I’ve heard in a long time! May Allah destroy all the agents of the [infidels]. What a beautiful day!” wrote “Abu Junayd” from Slough on a forum that hosts mainly British members of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) and the now defunct al-Muhajiroun. With contributors from Australia, Indonesia and the middle east, the site provides a valuable barometer for a strain of global Islamist thinking.

Another comment came from long-standing HT member Showkat Ali, who had previously issued veiled threats against Ed Husain, author of The Islamist, and celebrated the stabbing of former jihadist Hassan Butt. “We shouldn’t grieve for Benazir,” declared the trainee teacher from Milton Keynes. “Muslims should not shed any tears for the tyrants and oppressors who have spent their lives looting and pillaging the wealth of the ummah whilst serving the interests of the [infidel] colonialists in the west.”

Sustained unrest in Pakistan, and its strategic importance to the west, has ensured it remains the single most important country in the war on terror, eclipsing Iraq and Afghanistan. And with nearly half of British Muslims describing their ethnic background as Pakistani, turbulence in the subcontinent resonates here.

The situation was complicated by the launch in Britain of digital television in 1997, which swelled the number of foreign language broadcasters. Around 50 specialist channels now offer alternatives to the BBC and CNN, creating “digital ghettos” which ensure that diaspora communities are never too far removed from events “back home.”

Bhutto told the BBC shortly before her return to Pakistan that despite spending seven years in self-imposed exile – much of it in London – her physical absence from the subcontinent was largely immaterial. Asian broadcasters, the internet and the low cost of international phone calls rates ensured she was always abreast of developments.

The importance of diaspora media was made starkly clear when General Musharraf imposed martial law in November. Along with his curbs on domestic press freedom, he moved against the Dubai-based Pakistani broadcasters GEO and ARY by pressuring the Emirate to close their offices. His message was clear: stifling criticism among the Pakistani community abroad was as important as silencing domestic dissent.

The resonance of events in the subcontinent among Britain’s Islamists is indicative of shifts in the composition of its leadership that occurred in the late 1990s. The Arabs who had first exported radical Islam to Britain slowly found themselves being disenfranchised once their message took root among predominantly south Asian Muslims. Lacking a following, they paled into the background, leaving their successors to further the movements.

This new leadership, indigenously British but of south Asian origin, has found itself at the heart of political Islam’s struggle against the west since 9/11. Whereas previous conflicts have centred around almost exclusively Arab concerns, most notably in Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt, since 9/11 Pakistan has been the single most important country in the war on terror, ensuring centre stage for Britain’s young Islamists.

Of course, the overwhelming response within the Pakistani diaspora has been shock and outrage at the assassination of the Muslim world’s first female leader. During Friday prayers, special supplications were offered for her at mosques around the country, while the chairman of Birmingham’s Central Mosque said Bhutto’s death should not be allowed to “destroy democracy.” Outside, radicals continued to cheer her death and insist democracy is incompatible with Islam.

London is not an unnatural stage for any of this. When the outlines of the future state of Pakistan emerged in the 1940s, its vision was influenced more by the experience of its leaders in Oxbridge and the Inns of Court than by contemporaries in Deoband or Lucknow. The name “Pakistan” was itself conjured up by Chaudhry Rahmat Ali from his student address at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

That tradition looks set to continue, with the People’s party’s declaration that Benazir’s son, Bilawal, a 19-year-old undergraduate at Oxford, will succeed her as party chairman. Pakistan’s heir apparent has already vowed to steer his party through its next, almost certainly tempestuous, chapter.

But a website run by members of the old al-Muhajiroun, who now gather under the vague title “Muslims in the UK,” has already warned Bilawal to “take heed from the recent wave of attacks.” By not succumbing to militant Islam, they suggest more politicians will “be subject to violent terrorist attacks.” With a number of those threats now originating from Britain, perhaps we should also, as its proponents suggest, take heed.

Shiraz Maher is a writer and broadcaster

Prospect Magazine
Issue 142 , January 2008

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9979

A COMMUNITY (UMMA) OF LAMEBRAINS?*


UNDERSTANDING ISLAM No. 563


[Referred by Jihad Watch]


Blaming others
The News International (Pakistan)

By Farooq Sulehria
6/17/2008

The Amnesty International report on human rights for the year 2007 is out. The Muslim world constitutes, as usual, bleakest chapter. Every single country across the Muslim world has been pointed out by the Amnesty International either for executions and torture or discrimination against women and ethnic and religious minorities. Punishments never handed down even during the Stone Age, have been awarded in 21st century Muslim world. In one case, two Saudi nationals were awarded 7,000 lashes. Yes, 7,000. And executions? Well, 335 in Iran, 158 in Saudi Arabia and 135 in Pakistan. Violation of human rights, it seems, is the only thing that unites the otherwise divided Muslim world.

The report is no exception. The Muslim world cuts a sorry figure every time a global watchdog releases its findings. Freedom of expression here remains curtailed, Reporters Sans Frontieres annually reports. Regarding freedom of expression, there is a joke often told in Arab world. At a meeting, a US journalist says: "We have complete freedom of expression in the US. We can criticise the US president as much as we like." The Arab journalist replies. "We also have complete freedom of expression in Arab world. We can also criticise the US president as much as we like."

Similarly, it is either Bangladesh or Pakistan or Nigeria which is on top of Transparency International's corruption indexes. However, when Nobel laureates gather in Stockholm every December, Muslim scientists and writers are conspicuous by their absence. In case, as Naguib Mahfouz is crowned, he is stabbed and rendered paralysed. The irony, or tragedy, is that his attacker had not even read his excellent books. Or we disown Dr Abdul Salam just because he belonged to the Ahmadiya community. Salam's case deserves special mention since it underlines the absurdity that characterises this part of the world.

When all else fails, "Jews" and "Christian" West are there to lay the blame for all our ills. Conspiracy theories instead of scientific, rational thought holds sway across much of the Muslim world. And every time a rights abuse is highlighted in Iran, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, a typical Muslim answer is: Look at Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Chechnya. True, imperialism and Zionism have a hand in our predicament. However, there are many wounds one can only describe as self-inflicted.

Take, for instance, the Iran-Iraq war, one of the last century's bloodiest conflicts. There is no denying the fact that the United States backed the Saddam regime. But it was the Arab sheikhdoms, panicked at the Iranian revolution, that stoked the flames of war. And, ironically, now in the post-Saddam era when the "Christian" West has written off Iraq's Saddam-era debt worth $66 billion, Iraq's Arab brothers refuse to write off that country's $67 billion loans.

Similarly, last century's bloodiest Muslim genocide was not carried out by Serbs, Israelis, Americans, Europeans or Hindus. It was Pakistan's military that refused to respect a democratic verdict and plunged East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, into an ocean of blood. Millions were killed, maimed, raped and rendered homeless. Luckily, Pakistan has a "Hindu" neighbour. "Hindus are born enemies of Islam'. Hence, Pakistani children are now taught that a Bengali traitor (revered by Bengalis as founder of Bangladesh), in connivance with our "Hindu" neighbour, dismembered Pakistan. Ironically, of all her South Asian neighbours, Pakistan enjoys most cordial relations with the world's only Hindu state, Nepal. The other big genocide was perpetrated by Indonesia. The target was: its own citizens who were members of the Communist Party.

Figures are not available but Israel perhaps cannot match Iran in executing Arabs. Iran's confessional regime is a champion of the Arab cause in Occupied Territories but Arabs of its Khuzestan province are regularly sent to the gallows. Seizing the opportunity, one may also point out how only recently Afghan refugees were driven out of Iran as if Afghan refugees were not as Muslim as Palestinians. And, by the way in the fallen "Emirate of Afghanistan" itself, Hazaras were slaughtered by the Taliban in their thousands almost a decade ago – mainly because Hazaras are Shia. In Iraq, more people have been killed in Shia-Sunni clashes than in resisting the US occupation. Shia-Sunni clashes in Pakistan have claimed more lives than those lost in its wars against India. Ironically, this only "nuclear power" of the Muslim world is not being occupied on its eastern front by its "Hindu" neighbour but is losing territory on its western front to its own citizens.

One can mention from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait to the recent Hamas-Fatah infighting (a shameful tribute to Israel on its 60th anniversary). The list is long. Indeed, unending. However, the solution to all our problems is always simple: return to an imagined past which, mercifully for the people of the seventh century, never existed. Every time, a scientist in the West is ready with an invention, our readymade answer is: we knew about it 1,400 years ago what the West has found only now. We kill Theo van Gogh when confronted with a film. We burn down our own cities in response to a blasphemous and racist caricature. Still, we refuse to understand that our answer to every "provocation" is either a fatwa or mindless violence – perhaps because creativity is anathema to us. Not because we lack fertile minds, but because we lack liberation and freedom -- liberation from self-imposed mental, moral, and cultural censors. And freedom to think and express. Time to heed the great Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani, who said:


Five thousand years

Growing beards

In our caves.

Our currency is unknown,

Our eyes are a haven for flies.

Friends,

Smash the doors,

Wash your brains,

Wash your clothes.

Friends,

Read a book,

Write a book,

Grow words, pomegranates and grapes,

Sail to the country of fog and snow.

Nobody knows you exist in caves.

People take you for a breed of mongrels.



The writer is a freelance contributor.
______________________________
*umma
Denotation for the community of Muslims, that is, the totality of all Muslims.
http://i-cias.com/e.o/umma.htm

*lamebrains pl. - stupid persons, dolts
lame·brain
n. Informal
A stupid person; a dolt.
lamebrain

a dull-witted person : dolt
numskull

lamebrain
noun
(context, slang, derogatory) A fool.
http://www.allwords.com/word-lamebrain.html

Don't brand terrorism with Islam: Pranab
15 Jun, 2008, 2125 hrs IST, PTI

KOLKATA: Union External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday expressed vehement opposition to the tagging of terrorism with Islam, saying the idea, floated by the US after the attack on the World Trade Centre, was unacceptable.

"After the twin tower attack, the US floated worldwide the concept of Islamic terrorism. I am vehemently opposed to this." Mukherjee said at a seminar on 'Terrorism and Justice' organised by a Muslim NGO.

Describing Islam as an old religion with numerous followers, Mukherjee said clubbing the religion with terrorism could not be accepted.
[NOTE: See http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/021408.php It appears that India has her "useful idiots" in government as has the United States, Israel, many EU countries, etc.]


On reported attacks on Bengali-speaking Muslims outside West Bengal accusing them of being Bangladeshi infiltrators, Mukherjee said during the NDA regime he had an argument on the issue with the then Home Minister L K Advani.

"I asked Sri Advani whether he could be called Pakistani infiltrator because he hailed from Sind. Most chief ministers of West Bengal hailed from erstwhile East Bengal. Can they be called infiltrators?" Mukherjee, who himself hailing from the Birbhum district of West Bengal, said.

Pointing out that it was not unusual for people from a smaller economy like Bangladesh to move into a bigger economy like India, he said, "this happens all over the world. But there is no reason to believe that lakhs of Bangladeshis are infiltrating into India as claimed by Sri Advani."

Chairman of West Bengal's ruling Left Front Biman Bose said all complaints of harassment of Muslims for speaking Bangla should be brought to the notice of the Chief Minister.

"These complaints should be looked into," Bose, also CPI(M) state secretary, said.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Dont_brand_terrorism_with_Islam_Pranab_/articleshow/3131662.cms

MOSQUES AND A MAUSOLEUM IN PLACE OF HINDU TEMPLES

Many Hindus seem to cater to popular opinion that Islam preaches that its followers should not build Islamic structures at other religious sites. However, such people are grossly mistaken. To quote further from Sita Ram Goel:

"Hindu leaders have endorsed the Muslim propagandists in proclaiming that Islam does not permit the construction of mosques at other people's place of worship. One wonders whether this kowtowing to Islam is prompted by ignorance, or cowardice, or calculation, or a combination of them all. The Islam of which the Hindu leaders are talking exists neither in the Qur'an nor in the Sunnah of the Prophet."

The point made above by Sita Ram Goel is exactly what I [Zulfikar Khan] have voiced in my previous articles titled, "Destruction of Hindu Temples by Muslims" (can be found via http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/index.html).

." The evidence which I have presented is of purely Islamic nature and cannot be refuted. The crucial question: why the Islamic invaders did what they did can be clearly seen by reading the evidence. The evidence basically consists of Muslims glorifying their heinous tasks by invoking the name of Allah and verses from the Koran. They justify their barbaric deeds of loot, plunder, rape, torture, murder and destruction by saying that they do Allah's bidding and for doing so their reward will be paradise with countless houries, untouched young boys, rivers of wine, variety of fruits and abundant water. (To understand more clearly why such a paradise attracted Muslims read my article, "The X-Rated Paradise of Islam" can be found via http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/index.html).
Foregoing segment of this post from
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/temple4.html

***

Mosques and other Muslim structures present today in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were originally Hindu places of worship. The greedy and the lustful Islamic invaders inspired by the Koran and out of utter disrespect looted these sacred places and converted them into Islamic structures. These existing Islamic structures are harsh reminders of the bloody Islamic invasions and the oppression, torment and torture that these invaders brought with them.

The Taj Mahal is as much a Islamic structure as is mathematics a muslim discovery! The famous historian Shri P.N. Oak has proven that Taj Mahal is actually Tejo Mahalaya-- a shiv temple-palace. His work was published in 1965 in the book, Taj Mahal - The True Story. However, we have not heard much about it because it was banned by the corrupt and power crazed Congress government of Bharat who did not want to alienate their precious vote bank--the muslims.

After reading Shri Oak's work which provides more than adequate evidence to prove that Taj Mahal is indeed Tejo Mahalaya, one has to wonder if the government of Bharat has been full of traitors for the past 50 years! Because to ban such a book which states only the truth is surely a crime against our great nation of Bharat.

The most valuable evidence of all that Tejo Mahalaya is not an Islamic building is in the Badshahnama which contains the history of the first twenty years of Shah Jahan's reign. The writer Abdul Hamid has stated that Taj Mahal is a temple-palace taken from Jaipur's Maharaja Jaisigh and the building was known as Raja Mansingh's palace. This by itself is enough proof to state that Tejo Mahalaya is a Hindu structure captured, plundered and converted to a mausoleum by Shah Jahan and his henchmen. But I have taken the liberty to provide you with 109 other proofs and logical points which tell us that the structure known as the Taj Mahal is actually Tejo Mahalaya.

http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/tejo.html

All text by
Zulfikar Khan

MASS MURDERS IN THE NAME OF THE "INVISIBLE IDOL" OF ISLAM

Genocide committed in the name of Allah: 3,000,000 Bangladeshi Hindus Killed during the Pakistan-Bangladesh war in 1971. From 1894 to 1896 Abdul Hamid, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, killed 150,000 Armenian Christians. In India, Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur along with his disciples was burned to death by the Moghul ruler Aurangzeb in 1675. Another Sikh, Bhai Mati Das was sawn into right and left halves while he was still alive. In July 1974, 4,000 Christians living in Cyprus were killed by Fahri Koroturk, president of Turkey and his Islamic army. From 1843 to 1846 10,000 Assyrian Christians including women and children were massacred by the Muslims. From 1915 to 1918 750,000 Assyrians were killed in the name of Islamic Jihad. In 1933 thousands of Assyrian villagers were murdered by the Iraqi soldiers in Northern Iraq. Since 1990 more than 10,000 Kashmiri Hindus have been brutally murdered by Islamic fundamentalists. Over 280,000 Ugandans killed during the reign of Idi Amin from 1971 to 1979. Over 30,000 Mauritanians have been killed by the Islamic dictators since 1960. In 1980, 20,000 Syrians were murdered under the rule of Hafez Al-Assad, President of Syria. Since 1992 120,000 Algerians have been murdered by the Islamic fundamentalist army.

http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/index.html

Stop Islamic Conquest: Honey-Dipped Sexual Jihad

Stop Islamic Conquest: Honey-Dipped Sexual Jihad

Re Narendra Modi

policy of active containment
Strict law enforcement
In Gujurat, Narendra Modi
has tamed the muslims by periodically cutting off
electricity to muslim areas
and getting them to sweat in the hot Indian sun
and giving the police a free hand to thrash muslims
Strict law enforcement has a side effect, each time the more jihadist
elements come out to protest, thrash them
and the rest get tame

Interestingly the only 2 areas in India free of islamic terrorism are Indian punjab,
where sikhs solved the problem in 1947 and Gujurat where Modi used
islamic methods on muslims
from Even More Drastic Times Call for Even More Drastic Measures

Also see
Jihad in India--The Muslim Problem in India
Even More Drastic Times Call for Even More Drastic Measures
The Other Jihad: Islam's War on the Hindus
THE PROBLEM OF RESURGENT ISLAMIC JIHAD
http://islamicdangerstill.blogspot.com/2007/12/problem-of-resurgent-islamic-jihad-and.html
http://islamicdangerstill.blogspot.com/2008/01/jewish-general-led-indian-army-to.html