'While she was in Australia, Hirsi Ali called for immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa to be compelled to sign “assimilation contracts”.....
To make this suggestion is to totally fail to grasp the meaning of equality under the law. A liberal democracy is not worthy of the name unless it treats all its citizens, and those who aspire to citizenship, equally and without discrimination.'

In a liberal democracy the rights of the INDIVIDUAL are pre-eminent. Therefore, a Western liberal democracy should demand the compliance of a particular immigrant community to abide by basic human rights. That is, the human rights of the individual supercede the cultural rights of a community. Therefore, a cultural practice like prohibiting a Muslim women from marrying a non-Muslim man is completely unacceptable if it goes against the explicit wishes of the persecuted couple.

I have just finished listening to an ABC podcast where Rachael Kohn interviews Hirsi Ali for 'The Spirit of Things' programme. From what I can gather Hirsi Ali's view are admirable and perfectly acceptable to any free-thinking liberal democrat.

I would say that the Muslim and Leftist attacks on her is unsubstantiated malevolence born of irrational fear and a defective world-view.

Mark says the separation of Church and State does not imply a crusade against religion. For the left, it does, such as the crusade in the US to prevent the display of the Ten commandments.

Not against Islam, though. The left are culturally sensitive. Any criminal practices by non Europeans, or non Christians are entitled to be approached with sensitivity, as part of the culture.

Mark had some mistaken idea that the left were accused of condoning female genital mutilation. He gained this by refraining from reading critics, and disingenuously asserting that they accused the left of defending the practice.

Comments by the critics to whom Mark refers related to treatment by the left of Hirsi Ali. The left were mentioned only in the following extracts.

Miranda Devine says of Hirsi Ali: “her criticism of Islam as a religion in need of profound reform, and of multiculturalism as another religion which condones Islam's repressive practices, has made her enemies among the intellectuals of the liberal-left establishment”

Janet Albrechtsen:” Would they (the left) hail Hirsi Ali's expose of the inequality and mistreatment of Muslim women? Or would they defend cultural sensitivities? They opted for the latter, a choice imbued more with anti-Western sentiment than logic given that the past 40 years have been devoted to fighting for all sorts of freedoms…”

Mark considers that Hirsi does not understand the concept of equality before the law,evidenced by her assertion that people of beliefs which condone criminal practices, should be constrained to sign a reliquishment before being permitted to live in Australia.

Mark’s quaint notion is that this deprives them of equality before the law. I am pleased to say that I do not understand the basis of Mark’s thought process, but I am confident that he should desist from describing it as logical.

He mentions blogger Kim Jameson, another extreme offender against logic and clear thinking, who considers that there should be no denunciation of Islam’s backing of female genital mutilation, but only efforts to have the practitioners see that it is wrong. This apparently makes sense to her and to Mark.

Nick Lanelaw...*welcome* mate..

COACH.. thanx for that link to Hizb's constitution.. you mentioned Waleed Ali is their spokesperson? err.. do you have some documentary evidence to that effect, it could be important for the 2 dannies case.. esPECially when I find THIS in their constitution:

Article 7
The State implements the aHkaam shar’iyyah on all citizens who hold citizenship of the Islamic State, whether Muslims or not, in the following manner:


a. The aHkaam shar’iyyah is implemented in its entirety, without exception, on all Muslims.

b. Non-Muslims are allowed to follow their own beliefs and worships.

c. Those who are guilty of apostasy (murtadd) from Islam ARE TO BE EXECUTED according to the rule of apostasy, provided they have by themselves renounced Islam. (emphasis mine)

With regard to point"b" I STRONGLY recommend all readers view THIS video,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXchg9MgPug&mode=related&search=

and see what this luminary of Islamic jurisprudence has to say on the matter of Christians/Non Muslims and 'practicing' their faith.

Does CJ 'see' point 'c' there above ? Pointing this out is HOPEFULLY spreading A LOT of fear, which I am hoping will translate into action to raise public awareness of this in every way possible.
http://www.islammonitor.org

The only final thing to be said.. is to draw attention to the fact that they use 'DAR UL KAHFIR' (land of unbelief) rather than the word DAR UL HAAB (land of war/struggle to implement Islam)

The true picture is from this Islamic website/document.
http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/Articles/politics/nationalism.htm

There is only one place on earth which can be called the home of Islam (Dar-ul-Islam), and it is that place where the Islamic state is established and the Shari?ah is the authority and God's limits are observed, and where all the Muslims administer the affairs of the state with mutual consultation. The rest of the world is the home of hostility (Dar-ul-Harb). A Muslim can have only two possible relations with Dar-ul-Harb: peace with a contractual agreement, or war. A country with which there is a treaty will not be considered the home of Islam.

Says...it all.

CJ Morgan,

I ask just for a minute of your life, please.

Rabid posts? Yes...I can see how they sound that way. If I may be so bold sir, I used to be like you.

I was told about Islamic values and customs and didn't believe it.

I thought those who told such things were bigots.

I thought there was no way a billion people could follow a mass murdering paedophile.

But I was repeatedly told this on a number of occassions by good, decent people, and began to look into Islam myself.

This is all I ask of you.

Don't believe me, you would be stupid to.

You don't know me, so go read about it yourself.

Now, this is where it gets scary because I am going to tell you to read the MOST sacred Islamic texts, the Koran and Hadith, but...

...there are Hadith which only some Muslims use, then there are others which ALL Muslims rely on. It is these you should read.

You should be thinking, "this guy wants to bag Islam with his rabid posts, but he is telling me not to go to some book by an Islamophobe but Islam's Holy Texts themselves!"

Now, listen to the speeches - not of backward clerics like Omran, but the Mufti of Saudi Arabia, a very learned scholar. Read the sermons of clerics who have positions at Al-Azhar...THE most prominent place for scholars of Islam to study.

It is here that you will begin to understand why I am so rabid about Islam.

Watch the sermons of such learned clerics at MEMRITV.org

After this, although you will need to persist because it does seem insane that so many people could follow such a man, but then, once it hits you, once you realise that it isn't really a choice - that most are brainwashed from birth to hate 'the other', you will see it.

You will see that there can be no other way than violence for Islam, and can see how people beheading infidels while chanting 'Allah Akbar' actually ARE following the Prophet Mohammed.

Yvonne,

You should really read what I wrote to CJ Morgan as well.

One can be a leftist and a racist.

I'll quickly explain it to you.

Leftists believe in cultural relativism - most do. This means they believe there is no truth, that truth is in the eye of the beholder.

This means they effectively think African tribal societies where children are married off to elders, people get hacked to death for having spirits in them, is literally no worse a system to follow than what we have - equality for all under the law, religion relegated to the personal sphere, and so on.

To me, if one thinks children born into a society that is that horrible shouldn't be taken away and brought to the west - incidentally most of them want to come and live here too, which is why they all flock here...and why I believe this gives the west a mandate to smash every system that is indifferent to life.

Such a person is a racist because they see that the black child should live in that environment even though they wouldn't want their child to.

I see a world where every human being is equal in value, before the law, and just in general. Any culture that relegates women, minorities, to slave status (as Islam does) must be destroyed.

It really IS that simple.

Good day all.

Benjamin, if you're going to set up a strawman argument about relativism, the least you can do is get your cliches right. "Cultural relativism" is the anthropological doctrine that an individual's beliefs and activities should be interpreted in terms of their own culture. I can only presume you actually meant "moral relativism". However I suspect that one wouldn't have to be any sort of relativist to find your suggestion that "this gives the west a mandate to smash every system that is indifferent to life" repugnant, illogical and impossible to achieve.

So many ridiculous arguments have been mounted on this thread, that I find it difficult to know which to tackle. But I can't let Nick Lanelaw's shot about the "crusade in the US to prevent the display of the Ten commandments(sic)" go without comment. Of the ten, only 3 are relevant in a secular society (murder, stealing and false witness). False gods, graven idols, and blasphemy simply have no place in a court of law or school. Adultery (unpleasant but not illegal) honouring your parents (laudable but hardly a matter for the law) etc etc. A secular society should be our protection against meretricious nonsense like this.

Benjamin says "I see a world where every human being is equal in value, before the law, and just in general. Any culture that relegates women, minorities, to slave status (as Islam does) must be destroyed"

Perhaps what he really means is that "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength."