Danish Muslim pundit Omar Shah defends van Gogh murder in mailing list: "Too bad that he (van Gogh) no longer has the pleasure of practicing his perverse artwork, or rather Alhamdullilalh (Thank God). May Allah swt (the Almighty) grant his 'murderer' sabr (patience in hard times)." (Via Filtrat.)

Disgusting.

"You have the right to criticize Islam, but you DO NOT have the right to insult it!

P.S. We decide which is which!"

As Robert Whitaker astutely pointed out, every slave had freedom of speech. He could say or do anything that did not offend somebody. Unfortunately, the list of what would not offend somebody was very short.

Freedom of speech without the freedom to be offensive is not freedom at all.

Here is another article that Omar Shah wrote after his hate-posting was disclosed:

Since the murder of the Dutch director Theo van Gogh on November 2nd the debate in Denmark has been racing as if the murder had been committed here. It is a vast contrast to the attention it got in, say, England. The core of the debate has almost only been the increasing threats from fundamentalists against the freedom of speech, and Theo van Gogh has been presented in a mono-facetted light as a fighter for freedom of speech and democracy who only wanted to confront totalitarian Islam. The other side to the situation - whether a film like 'Submission' if deemed necessary in any way and what its intention is , has not been considered, nor has the limit for freedom of speech and the consequence of mocking and violating a religion - been touched at all. The situation in Holland is not unlike the one in Denmark, although Denmark up till now has been spared of violence and vandalism on a larger scale. Holland has – apart from the killing of Pim Fortuyn, and the latest increase in vandalism and arson which could well be a forerunner to a new Crystal Night, further contributed to a climate of hate and mutual distrust. Some radical right-wingers are even starting to talk about frontline states in a cultural war between the Muslim and the Western world. Outraged politicians and editors have been on the spot as if the freedom of speech was an absolute concept, but unlimited freedom of speech does not exist anywhere. Not even in Denmark, as criminal law contains more than one section, which regulates people’s remarks; and rightly so as we have censorship on films and videos: the beheading of Kenneth Bigley was not shown on TV. The question is; where should the limit be drawn and what is permissible as long as the intention is to create a debate?
First and foremost: there is a difference between debating and provoking or outraging. Many provocateurs want to hide under the cloak of free debate, but when objective debaters illuminates questions and issues and tries to contribute with constructive solutions , provocateurs and demagogues are not interested in solutions but solely seek to cause a stir that escalates in order for their prophecies to come true.
The harsh language in the immigration – and primarily Islam related debate has changed a lot in the last decade and has become harsh to such an extend that it reminds me of Nazi-Germany in the 1930'ies. To cause hatred against an entire group in the population or a religion and its followers has become routine and can no longer outrage anyone. As the concern regarding immigration increases among the right wing parties and become more acceptable, so does the extreme rhetorics become more and more mainstream.
The debate has moved into a downward path where the limits constantly are challenged and where yesterday’s taboos become ‘objective statements’ if only they are being repeated for so long. In this kind of 'debate' the roles of the protagonists and antagonists are already appointed. Islamists (read: any Muslim , who is not integrated enough’, no matter their level of education and/or line of work) are the evil ones, while the right wing provocateurs are the good guys.
Unfortunately this casting of roles in antagonists and protagonists has become routine in order to view Muslims as easily offended, someone who, when they feel mistreated are not allowed to view themselves as victims, and on the other hand routinely see protagonists as victims, even where these actively perform as provocateurs (and demagogues).
This is how we should view the roles of Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali and their contributions to 'the debate' in Holland, they don’t want to inform or educate nor co-existence – quite the contrary: they seek only to stigmatise in the worst possibly way.
Director Theo van Gogh certainly was no Spielberg, nor a creator of debates such as Michael Moore, and nor even remotely the kind that Leni Riefenstahl was. The director, he can be compared to in his mission, is Fritz Hippler (the Nazi who directed, the eternal Jew (1940)), and 'Submission' have more in common with the eternal Jew than Moore’s 'Fahrenheit 9/11' or Riefenstahl’s 'The Will to Triumph’ for that matter. Where 'Fahrenheit 9/11' created a debate and 'The Will to Triumph’ is pro-actively glorifying, 'Submission' is (along the lines of the eternal Jew) manipulative and stigmatising. As a propagandist van Gogh had no other intention than to cause hatred against an entire population and degrade a religion and its followers.
It may come as no surprise among most Danes that a 10 min. long film could cause such stir among Muslims, and this is to some extent understandable.
The Danes do not – like the Americans and the French - have any symbols (they be of religious or secular nature), which they regard as unquestionable sacred (such as The flag, the Bible, etc.) which is why the Danes – unlike other Western people fail to understand that anyone can become so offended by something which are held dear and sacred to them. 2) It is hard for an outsider to understand the deliberate manipulation with The Quaran and Islam, that van Gogh is using in order to portray Islam as a religion, which condones atrocities towards women. The title alone, 'Submission', is a direct reference to the Arab word Islam, and there is no doubt that it is the religion and not the fundamentalist they are aiming at. The use of 'monologues with God' and quotations from the Quaran in the film stresses that, it is Islam/God that is challenged - not men from a Muslim background. By using this type of manipulation the religion Islam is portrayed as a religion, which condones or even encourages crimes like incest, rape and domestic violence. Incest and rape are not solely Islamic matters but the film portrays them as immediate products of the religion. The film abuses several verses from the Quaran to give a deliberately wrong impression of - and clearly does not seek to inform about the actual matters nor is it the intention to create a debate, as ‘The eternal Jew’, also exposes myths the intention is to cause hatred against Muslims.
With its very strong mixture of nakedness and visual verses from the Quaran the film is aiming directly towards provoking every day Muslims and not Islamists in particular, as there is no political provocation present in the film. To show a (more or less naked) woman at prayer is furthermore deriding mockery of the Muslim prayer, as prayer is seen as a direct communication with God by Muslims, and both van Gogh and Hirsi Ali knew exactly which buttons to push.
This deliberate provocation has to been seen in the context with the already sore situation in Holland. It is obvious that van Gogh not only wished to cause hatred towards Muslims, but also sought to provoke a strong reaction, which did not only stigmatise Muslims furthermore but also made him and his equals martyrs. However, he may not have realised that the reaction would have been quite as strong as it turned out to be.
The film has a double aim: 1) to influence the viewer’s opinion about Islam and Muslims in a negative direction, 2) to provoke a reaction, which furthermore would stigmatise Muslims (they are already proclaimed as antagonists) and say yes to the protagonists and their 'analysises and prophesies’.
From a social context the danger does not lie in the influence this film has on the Muslim viewer’s blood pressure but in the anger it will cause among Muslims, and the hate and suspicion it will cause in the Non-Muslim audience, and thus it contributes to cause an ever bigger gap between the two.
When one as a Muslim complains about mockery and misinterpretations of the religion, one is usually being told that one is a democratic illiterate, who has not understood the idea of freedom of speech, that one is frightened of discussion and do not wish to defend one’s views, and that also seem to be the way most of the media is heading in its coverage of the murder of van Gogh. Reality is that only very few Muslims, do not want to discuss. The point is, that there is a difference between discussing/debating and propaganda and manipulation. Social problems and/or differences with an ideological origin are not only possible, but also healthy to discuss and I would gladly be the first to discuss these problems, wherever they may take place.
Rape, wife battery and incest are crimes, which unfortunately take place in both the Western and the Muslim world.
These issues are important to discuss and prevent – and being frightened of talking about those taboo serves no one but the perpetrators, whether they are brown, white, Muslims, Christians or Atheists. But it is considered ‘subjective’ to blame Christianity or the Danish culture of the many rapes and incest crimes, which are being committed each year in Denmark.
If I see 'decadence' in the present Danish culture, I would not find it logical to blame it on the Bible or Jesus, or any known Danish cultural icon for that matter but rather analyse today’s reality in order to understand the background. The main question is if one really wants to understand the realities or only wishes to provoke and propagandise and lay bare a myth.
In the passed week the violence has exploded in Holland with attacks on mosques, Muslim schools, and churches. Violence means more violence, and it seems as if a lot of forces only waited for that situation, such as the murder, to strike. Unfortunately we have once again been confirmed of the one-dimensional focus on the problem and no one has been standing in a line in order to condemn these actions, which is so often expected from Muslims.
It is sad that Theo van Gogh was murdered and used as a martyr and even in death continued to spew the poison he did as when he was still alive.
No matter the brutality in his death it still does not make him any different from whom he was: an attention seeking provocateur that did not want peaceful co-existence but quite the opposite. You can get attention too in Denmark if you bash Islam and we have a lot of debaters, who feel exposed and vulnerable to Islamic violence; this is clearly regrettable, but apparently the threats received are no different to those that Slimane ('The Prisoner from Guantánamo') received after he appeared in the media, which many Danes saw as controversial. The Danish imam Abdul Wahid Petersen is not unfamiliar with threats and this has, unfortunately, become every day events no matter on which side you are.
For some, taking on the role as the victim is a way to fame (people, who miss no chance of mentioning their ‘attacks’), while it for others unfortunately becomes the bitter reality. The leader of the Dutch extremist party LPF, Sergej Moleveld, has been arrested for reporting fake 'Islamic threats', a phenomena, we unfortunately have seen in Denmark also.
Denmark has freedom of speech, a freedom which any right wing extremists and provocateurs often are the first to plead to er de første til at påbeharsh be sig, but unfortunately they are also the ones who try to også de første til at forsøge atto try to take away from people, who do not agree with them such as the so-called Islamists.
Danish law has both a law against racist remarks as well as law against slander but in the present situation where the forecasted/defined antagonists and protagonists are already staged it is impossible to gain justice in court. When the offended speak about Islam, one is already judged as being easily offended, where as it is seen as not only acceptable but even laudable to bash Islam. Writers and 'debaters' who degrade Islam, are not being called irresponsible but brave, and Muslims, who respond, are either not integrated, Democratic illiterates or Islamists in Wolfe’s clothes.
Words such as responsibility and consequence are forgotten as long as anyone can say anything; as long as you are an Islam critic. This stigmatising and subjective tone is not healthy for any society, and as this feeling increases among young Muslims and the degree of contempt and suspicion increases among non-Muslims, the violence, we have seen it in the passed couple of days will only escalate.
If Muslims don’t feel that society has mechanisms which guarantees their dignity or that justice will prevail, then a feeling of powerlessness and desperation will slowly evolve and if the worst comes to the worst lead to murder such as the one we saw on Gogh. Its easy for a society which refuses to face the truth about its own climate in public debates to blame the fundamentalists only.
Further sanctions against Muslims without sanctions against extremists -and the right wing cannot do any thing but convince the murderers of Gogh and their peers that the only way to prevent this propaganda unfortunately is chaos.
Why not replace the word Muslim with 'Jew' in today’s debate and provoke a public outcry. A few years ago I would have refused to draw comparisons with my own situation and that of the Jews in Germany in the 1920’ies and 1930’ies, but today only the degree of violence is lacking before the comparison of the two is complete.
If ‘Der Ewige Jude’( The Eternal Jew) was produced today and was about Muslims, would the advocate of freedom of speech with out a doubt still defend this as an important and educational contribution to the debate, would Muslims still be called easily offended - and would a ban be considered as sucking up to Islamists.
A wave of anti-Islam is sweeping across Europe, and after the violence in Holland it does not take too much imagination to vision another 'Crystal Night in a not so far future. 'Never again’ was a good slogan; it is in the interest of all of us that we learn from this and do not let demagogues from this day and age claim the same Freedom of speech, as Fritz Hippler himself abused so excellently.

HEDDA- Your INTELLECTUALLY INVALID and polemically vapid comparison between the Jews of Europe -who were a minority ghetto-ized for centuries- and who were constantly attacked by the hostile majority of "Christians" before being ultimately led to the brink of extermination by the pagan Nazis (who took advantage of the European pervasive anti-semitism to rob, kill and terrorize the Jewish members of their populace) -and the current hostile majority of Muslims turns the world on its head. The Jews were NOT attacking the Europeans. (Cutting their throats for not following the Torah in Berlin in 1934, etc.) But, at present, the Muslims (a billion more of them than there are Jews, currently) ARE the ones attacking Europeans. (Naive, tolerant, self-abasing, simplistic, un-historical, naive Europeans, I might add.) To berate people like the Dutch for reacting with rage against the public slaughter of a prominent member of their freethinking society is absurd, if not suicidal. And to worry that the hostile infiltrating theocratic tyrannically-inclining Islamicists are a poor, helpless minority like the 1930's era Jews (whom they hate and wish to finish the 'Nazis job' on) shows that there are many in Europe still wrapped up in the pipedream of mutlicultural appeasement and denial of the facts of the Muslim faith's root dogma- the Q'uran (and Hadiths). The Koranic fanatics will be glad to slit your throat after they get your to defend them from your own culture to the point where it is eroded into a Sharia State Order. Better convert to Islam before it's too late. At least then you won't have to worry about thinking. It will all be done for you. Remember what the croissant was for? Better order one now before they are banned as insensitive and 'racist'. (I hear they taste great with napalm jelly.) EDO

I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists. Robert Browning (1812 - 1889)

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