Sony’s capitulation in the face of threats by unidentified sources, who are presumed to support the odious Kim dynasty, serves to confirm what most of us have known for some time. Namely, the extent of allowable political discourse in popular culture is inextricably linked to the willingness of the objects of political criticism to violently suppress that criticism. Or, at the very least, intimate the unpleasant nature of the response in store for those willing to offer a dissenting voice. An interview the iconic Indo-British author and apostate Salman Rushdie did with Irshad Manji several years ago is worth watching again, if only because in it Rushdie makes the ineluctable observation that with each acquiescence to the grievances of Islam-whose appetite for grievance is insatiable by its very nature-Western society weakens its resolve to stand up to less imposing gangsters and their intimations of violence. As this complete and utter surrender to a third-rate, despotic Asian reich demonstrates.

In some ways, the comparison is exceedingly apt. Even though the Kim dynasty is often described as a cult of personality, it could just as accurately be called the civic religion of North Korea. And just as devoted Muslims view any desecration of their holy book-real or imagined-as an offense worthy of death, the penalty for not properly venerating the image of a Kim is something best not contemplated. So it’s no surprise that a film which-initially, at least-concluded with the assassination of the current ruler of the DPRK would occasion the type of response it has engendered, even if Kim Jong-un is not as beloved as the man whose legacy he hopes to emulate.

It’s worth noting that the less personal cinematic assault against Juche dogma which was released in 2012 did not occasion similar retaliatory strikes from the North Korean regime, although it and its supporters were  displeased by that film as well, naturally enough. There is an artistic work of much greater value than the one starring Seth Rogan and his friend James Franco which explores the tragedy of North Korea while utilizing humor, albeit in service of illuminating a seemingly impenetrable prison, which I think my readers would enjoy. I’m speaking of Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography Of Kim Jong Il, which relates the ongoing tragedy taking place in that state in the most remarkable way I’ve ever seen in print-you can read my review here.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the subject matter, and the craven nature of American publishers, although it’s shared by many others, Dear Reader is a self-published book. Nevertheless, it’s one of the outstanding pieces of literature on this subject and deserves to be read by as many people as possible, especially those who see the North Korean regime as some sort of penny dreadful or Saturday Night Live skit, rather than the horrific concentration camp for over 20 million human lives which it is.

The first gathering of the Stop Islamization of Nations Congress took place on the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the city-and nation-targeted by pan-Islamic jihadists on that clear September day. Considering the deeply-rooted religious and ideological convictions that were  to serve as the fulcrum of those massacres, it was only fitting that any discussion of Islam’s predatory relationship to the inalienable rights of Americans take place on that day and in this city. However, the scope of this discussion extended well beyond the borders of America, because the ambitions of Islamic jihad go well beyond the geography of the United States.

That’s why men and women from across the globe came to New York City last week to attend the Stop Islamization of Nations Congress. Oppressed people throughout the world, from non-Malay second class citizens living in a “moderate” Muslim country, to indigenous Burmese threatened by Southeast Asian jihadists standing up for their illegal alien Islamic brethren the Rohingyas-even as they labor under the despotic reign of a military junta-to Iranian exiles forced to flee from the terror that is Khomeinism, came to stand in solidarity with their fellow freedom activists inside of the Millennium Plaza Hotel.

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer deserve credit for having the tenacity and courage to make such an event possible, regardless of the personal costs and risks that attend to launching a campaign as déclassé as standing up for free inquiry and open debate. Even as every major organ in this country’s cadaverous media complex refuses to show the satirical cartoons published by French magazine Charlie Hebdo-sketches approved by my namesake, a man with more courage than the entire editorial staffs of the Washington Post and New York Times combined-the individuals responsible for the SION conference continue to stand up for the inalienable rights which are imperiled by global jihadism in its various manifestations.

The actions of Charlie Hebdo echo the bravery exhibited by the editors of Jyllands Posten and cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, so it was only fitting that the final panel of last week’s SION conference should include Anders Gravers of Stop the Islamization of Europe, which was created during the manufactured Jyllands Posten conflagration in order to defend European values from jihadist incursions. Hailing from Denmark, home to Jyllands Posten, Gravers has a unique perspective on what it means to live in a nation that’s been subjected to a carefully orchestrated, meticulously planned, global campaign of hatred and intimidation initiated by the adherents of Islam, who-at one point in our collective history-were more accurately characterized as Mohammedans.

The attempt by totalitarian Islamic states to intimidate the Danish people into passively acquiescing to sharia law-including its absolute prohibition of criticism of Mohammed and Islamic dogma-along with the internal assault by an Islamic fifth column within Europe’s borders, prompted Mr. Gravers to found an organization based upon the premise that the seemingly inexorable Islamization and dhimmification of his country and continent could be reversed.

In order to stand up for what had heretofore been regarded as inviolable human rights, he had to withstand an unceasing barrage of criticism from what he charitably calls the misleadia, a vast network of increasingly obsolescent press outlets that, rather than conducting intrepid, investigative journalism, concentrate their energies upon demonizing and denigrating ordinary individuals who pose simple questions about the direction in which Europe is headed.

Much like his fellow countryman, Lars Hedegaard of the Danish Free Press Society has withstood intense political pressure to renounce his beliefs and truckle to the transformation of his country into something completely alien to most Danes who grew up in the aftermath of post-war Europe. His prosecution by the government  for “hate speech” was, in its essence, a heresy trial where he was prosecuted for having the temerity to openly question a system where unfettered immigration of Muslims from third world nations is coupled with a revocation of fundamental natural rights, foremost among them being the liberty to speak and write without fear of reprisals from agents of the state.

Although Mr. Hedegaard emerged from this state-sponsored debasement more or less intact, and-in a sense-triumphant, this ritual of state-driven, Islamist-supported intimidation established a precedent which will be followed in the future. Europe’s modern witch hunters will, henceforth, find new victims to burn at the stake, because the capacity of bien pensant elites to punish speech deemed insensitive to the feelings of Muslims-like the capacity for (selective) Muslim outrage-is boundless. Just like officials in the United States, Eurocrats need something to deflect attention from the real problem facing Europe.

However, the persecution of these individuals is merely a shadow of the threat posed  by the growth of an imported ideology which seeks to extend its dominion over all human affairs-an all-encompassing religion wherein the personal is political, and vice-versa. Those who aren’t patient enough to wait for the state to punish anti-Islamic speech often try to take matters into their own hands, as the man speaking in the video above, acclaimed Swedish artist and iconoclast Lars Vilks, well knows.

Mr. Vilks was not well known outside of Europe, or artistic circles, before he created the satirical drawing that you see above. Mohammed as a roundabout dog-an installation art movement begun in Sweden-was meant to test the limits of artistic expression within the confines of today’s stultifying political correctness and reluctance to gainsay left wing shibboleths.

The reason we know about this drawing today is precisely because the fear, timidity, and groveling solicitude regularly shown towards The Religion of Peace-and its warped conception of free speech-forced art directors who were initially willing to host his artwork to beg off, which in turn prompted a newspaper to publish the drawing that has-for better or worse-become inextricably linked with Mr. Vilks’s identity as an artist. The caricature of Mohammed as half-canine would go on to be displayed in a Scandinavian art exhibition-complete with a cautionary curatorial note that would normally precede an exhibit devoted to examining war crimes. However, it “went viral” because a single news editor had the temerity to make a choice all too many editors, publishers, publishing houses, academics, and ostensible journalists blanche at making.

The decision by  Nerikes Allehanda to publish roundabout Mohammed led to a chain reaction which might have been predicted by anyone who had followed the course of the first battle of the Cartoon Wars. One of Mr. Vilks’s aggrieved critics-seen above-decided to take matters into his own hands, and-along with other members of Somali militia/Al Qaeda affiliate Al Shabaab-plot his murder. What’s remarkable is that this was just one of nearly half a dozen major terrorist attempts on his life, including one undertaken by an American Muslim convert who went by the colorful moniker Jihad Jane. The incongruity of a blond woman from Pennsylvania leading an international plot aimed at his assassination was not lost on Vilks, who described it as something you would typically find in the plot to a suspense-thriller.

One of pleasant surprises of this fascinating speech was its brilliantly sardonic wit and lacerating humor, which I hadn’t expected when I first came to the SION Conference. Most people would have difficulty apprehending the humor of the harebrained schemes concocted with the ultimate goal-however unrealized-of facilitating that person’s death. However, Vilks was able to mine humor from what would ordinarily be seen as terrifying circumstances, even to lightheartedly mock the transparent illiteracy of some would-be Pakistani jihadists-seen above.

As well as their inability to acquire an actual Swedish flag to incinerate during their anti-Vilks hate rally. A problem that, perhaps unsurprisingly, does not bedevil Muslims seeking to vent their anti-American sentiments.

His sense of levity extended to those who satirized him as an artist-such as the cartoonist who created the deprecatory drawing seen above. In fact, he contrasted this peaceful, lawful critique of his artwork with the coercive violence that serves as the default reaction within large sections of the global community of Muslim worshippers. One manifestation of this tendency was the fire-bombing of his home in Sweden, the results of which you can see below.

Although not as imminent a threat to his life, the attacks upon Lars Vilks during lecture tours he conducted throughout his native Sweden demonstrate perhaps an even more disturbing phenomenon found within academic circles.

Whether he is being bombarded with eggs, paint-as seen above-or that old standby, closed fists, Vilks has been subjected to a systemic campaign of intimidation that passes for debate in the cloistered, intolerant halls of academe. The intellectually torpid environment, inflexible hostility to Western culture and lack of critical analysis found in most liberal arts universities only serves to reinforce the pre-existing obedience to authority and customs ingrained within Islam, a toxic interaction illustrated by the collegiate experience of the architect of 9/11.

This is yet another reason why I agree with other panelists from the SION conference, who reiterated the necessity of revising our disastrous federal immigration policy, which routinely confers residence-if not citzenship-upon people who are not only unassimilable and a burden upon taxpayers-but often present an potentially lethal security risk, to say nothing of the danger posed by those who enter this country illegally.

Yes, we must stand up for the essential liberties that differentiate our culture from their theirs. We must also rediscover the ability to mock our enemies and their myopic world view, which doesn’t recognize the inherent irony of violently marauding in opposition to a film depicting their prophet as an inveterately violent human being. And we must absolutely resist the urge to not write, draw or speak about this subject. However, as we affirm the necessity of preserving the values and culture of the Enlightenment, we must also acknowledge that the post-war experiment of creating a multicultural society built from the planks of unfettered immigration has failed. I hope to write about that failure, and how it can be addressed, in the days ahead.

Note:  Video footage, including a rousing speech made by the legendary Pamela Geller, as well as a moving speech by 9/11 mother Nelly Braginskaya, at Atlas Shrugs. Also, additional photos and footage provided by the indefatigable photo-blogger Urban Infidel. 

If  there was a single, overarching theme to the first Stop the Islamization of Nations Congress, it was just that. Freedom. The freedom exercised by Rifqa Bary-the courageous young woman who converted to Christianity despite the wishes of her Muslim parents, and whose portrait you see emblazoned upon the poster above-as well as the freedom to engage in critical inquiry regarding any and all subjects-including Islam-are one and the same. For fundamentally, they both come down to the exercise of free will. Individual choice is something that is not highly valued in authentic Islamic culture, as the plight of the recently freed Iranian Christian pastor  Yousef Nardakani, and the fate which befell Arab journalists who republished the famous Jyllands Posten Mohammed cartoons, demonstrate.

I traveled to the UN Millennium Plaza Hotel on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 massacres in order to listen to a roster of speakers who would illuminate just how precarious the freedom we enjoy is, why it is imperiled-not only in the United States, but across the globe-by whom, and how we can resist the encroachment of those who would circumscribe, and ultimately, eliminate it.

Notwithstanding the passel of amiably grouped American and United Nations flags in that photo, the  values of the United States and those undergirding the United Nations could not be further removed from one another. Anyone who has read the aptly titled The UN Gang by Pedro Sanjuan, a career diplomat and Foreign Service officer-a book that , ironically enough, was stolen while I attended the conference-would recognize just how different our nation is from the anti-American swamp in Turtle Bay. Unfortunately, those in power today-particularly within this administration-seemingly want to emulate the rogue’s gallery of Islamic theocracies, tinhorn military dictatorships, and third world socialist backwaters that currently comprise its membership. At least, with respect to the citizen’s relationship to the state.

Although the words from the Old Testament prophet are laudable-if a bit confusing when juxtaposed against the United Nations general opinion of Jews-they in stark contrast to most of the actions undertaken by the UN, which range from supplication before the preeminent state sponsor of terror, to deploying “peacekeepers” whose chief recreational activity consists of terrorizing the people they were putatively sent to protect. However, the most insidious threat posed by the United Nations is its attempt to nullify our natural rights in order to preserve the edifice of Islam as a great religion.

In decades past, the free world-led by the United States-would have led the fight against criminalizing dissent. However, the position espoused by the American government has been changed dramatically. The instinctive reflex on the part of government officials is exemplified by the craven tweet-since deleted-by the United States embassy in Cairo issued shortly before it was assaulted by a salafi mob. A mob which included, it should be noted, both the younger brother of Al Qaeda’s current emir and members of the terrorist organization whose leader is responsible for the first World Trade Center bombing. Of course, now that the Arab Spring is in full bloom, we should keep in mind that yesterday’s terrorist might very well be today’s democrat.

The most significant aspect of this transformation is the State Department’s active encouragement of a UN resolution, crafted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which would criminalize any substantive criticism of Islam. As Robert Spencer pointed out during the conference, this treaty would have the force of law, and there’s no reason to believe that the United States Supreme Court-McConnell vs. FEC made its cavalier attitude towards expressive speech plain-to honor our First Amendment rights any more than it has recognized those enshrined within the Second Amendment, or, I would add, the Fifth.

The institutionalization of this dhimmification of our legal system is occurring in our own backyard. State Senator David Storobin, who-regardless of any other criticism that can be leveled against him-should be congratulated for having the temerity to attend this conference, explained why this is such a pernicious development. A man whose family escaped from the Soviet Union-the largest totalitarian empire in world history-and whose relatives were slaughtered by Islamic separatists-Senator Storobin is perhaps uniquely qualified to speak to this issue. He denounced hate speech laws, which he correctly described as penalizing thought rather than criminal action, and averred that he believed in the principles of the Founders. “The founding fathers of America, not the Soviet Union. Madison, not Lenin.”

It’s a quote worth keeping in mind when the vanguards of the left insist upon adopting a policy of prior restraint against the only religion of global breadth they seemingly venerate.  What makes matters even more grave is the fact that those whose sensitivities will be preserved at the expense of our liberty, unlike the victims of other thought crimes-or perceived thought crimes-the left has sought to give protected status, these individuals have the propensity to vent their displeasure in ways much more colorful than public protests or civil disobedience. This fact was brought home to the audience during the speech of the man you see below, David Yerushalmi, founder of the American Freedom Law Center and tireless advocate for American civil liberties.

Mr. Yarushalmi’s speech focused on the nexus between the application of sharia law within Western societies and the inexorable diminishment of civil rights and liberties of citizens living in those societies. Contrary to the anodyne picture of sharia which has been painted by the press, academe, and assorted lapdogs of CAIR touted by our intellectual betters, the facets of Islamic law-provided we ever agree on a school of Islam to impose-which many have no trouble with in principle are diametrically opposed to the values we cherish as American citizens. A perfect illustration of this conflict in practice occurred earlier this year during an Arab American festival held in the city of Dearborn, Michigan.

Exercising their Constitutional right to peaceably assemble and voice their opinions, several Christian missionaries decided to demonstrate their profession of faith in Christ-and disbelief in the assertions found within the pages of the Koran-during this event. Doubting the claims of Mohammed-or his adherents-is a criminal offense-in Islam, not in the United States-which led to these men to being stoned by a frenzied mob of “Arab Americans.” Despite the fact that it was the peaceful protesters who were attacked-to the point of bloodshed-they were the ones told to vacate the premises, lest they be arrested.

The Orwellian revision of the facts by local and national media outlets-where the victims and aggressors were inverted-was not surprising. However, the willingness of a large municipal police department to enforce the legal code that contradicts the 1st Amendment is what led Mr. Yarushalmi to pursue a lawsuit against the officials responsible for this outrage.

While this incident might be interpreted as speaking to the depressing lack of respect for constitutional rights by those entrusted with the use of deadly force by the state, the tenacity with which this lawyer is seeking redress is what stands out in my mind. This determination to protect the sacred right of free speech can also be seen in the legal battle between the American Freedom Defense Initiative/Stop the Islamization of America and the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority over the content of the subway ad you see presented in the powerpoint presentation below.

Questioning the rationale behind the construction of a mosque within sight of Ground Zero, the ad was initially deemed unacceptable by MTA executives before a lawsuit reminded them that freedom of speech trumps the tender sensibilities of a teflon-coated religion. The same MTA was forced to back down again after a federal judge chastised it for refusing to consent to the display of another AFDI/SIOA ad which supported the state of Israel.

However, the most intriguing recent legal victory of Mr. Yarushalmi’s was the decision by the corresponding public transportation governing authority in the city of Detroit.

The poster you see above is nearly identical in content to billboards commissioned by atheist activists exhorting non-Muslim believers to abjure their faith. The only difference being that a the consequence for individuals who answer the question posed here in the affirmative is death. As the tragic fates of Jessica Mokdad…

…and Aqsa Parvez make clear.

It is precisely the willingness among adherents to the Koran to inflict often lethal violence upon its critics which leads governments to attempt to circumscribe the actions, and police the expression of thoughts, of the people whom they ostensibly serve. However, the complicity of almost every major media organ-both in print and on television-in the whitewashing of Islam’s intolerance of dissent-among other less than admirable traits-has as much to do with affinity for the ends-if not always the means-of its followers, as it does any craven abdication of responsibility linked to fear. We’ll examine the responsibility of the press for the current state of affairs in Part II of our coverage.