Even as Islamic tyrants and terrorists and their progressive enablers attempt to suppress free, honest speech throughout the Western world, there are those intrepid souls who continually defy authority in order to spread a message of truth. One such man is the great Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, who broadcast to the globe that which many-including the sharia brigades on Youtube, evidently-would seek to suppress at all costs. Much like Pamela Geller, Bosch Fawstin, Robert Spencer, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Mr. Wilders is someone to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude. At least, those of us who cherish the liberties which are slowly being stripped away in the name of diversity, i.e. fear.

One of my heroes-and an inspiration for anyone around the globe fighting for humanistic, Western values-is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. A woman whose life is actually in peril for espousing her beliefs-unlike some media martyrs-Ms. Ali personifies courage in our modern age. She’s currently promoting her new work, Heretic: Why Islam Needs A Reformation Now, by making the rounds of cable chat shows, even deigning to visit Comedy Central’s repository of Koranic knowledge, Jon Stewart.

Even if you decide not to purchase her book, I would recommend watching the brief interview above, as well as some of her other recent media appearances. She articulates, with more clarity than any of the talking heads opining on the why and wherefore of global jihadists currently decamping for the Middle East, the reasons why multiculturalism as a governing political philosophy has failed, and why it needs to be wholeheartedly rejected by all rational individuals. The notion that we should accept an obscurantist, retrograde ideology based upon 7th century Arabian beliefs in 21st century Europe and North America is absurd, and it is one that needs to be consigned to the ash heap of history.

Update: As promised by Brit Hume, Fox News has republished the offending cartoons. If you’re waiting expectantly for other drive-by media to follow suit, don’t hold your breath. There’s only one religion in contemporary society whose mockery is verboten. 

Mark Steyn, as usual, cuts to the heart of the matter. The refusal by almost every North American media outlet of consequence-with one glaring exception-to republish the cartoons of Charlie Hebdo-like their choice to ban the Jyllands-Posten Mohammed caricatures, is an example of cowardice. This is a decision motivated by base, craven fear, masquerading as a sop to Muslim sensibilities. That said, the decision by most European newspapers to republish those same satirical cartoons shouldn’t be seen as an indication that the continental media have any firmer grasp of what’s at stake, as the  groupthink denunciation of grassroots anti-Islamization campaigns, as well as of those political figures who’ve criticized the multicultural ideology that contributed to Wednesday’s massacre, makes clear. The consistent obfuscation of who is responsible for the series of horrific anti-Semitic violence being but one example of how muddled the Fourth Estate’s evaluation of Islam’s relationship to the West is.

Unfortunately, I think that Steyn has hit upon a difficult truth to digest. The journalists who were assassinated by jihadists in Paris were not simply irreplaceable in terms of their unique talent for clarifying the relationship described above. They were irreplaceable in a much more immediate, practical sense. There are only so many people willing to place themselves in the crosshairs of the perpetually aggrieved religion before our reserve of martyrs is exhausted. And then, notwithstanding the faux solidarity of people who posture as journalists, the terrorists really will have won.
h/t Gates of Vienna.

Today’s episode of Seavey/Perry tackles the religio-ideology which dare not speak its name, as well as popular culture’s treatment of the same. 

Enjoy.

Freedom as it’s been known and experienced since the Enlightenment is in a death spiral on the European continent, as we’ve explored on this website in the past. One of the most cherished freedoms-for both Europeans and Americans-is the ability to speak openly about anything and everything without fear of government suppression or reprisals.

The fight to achieve this ideal has been an arduous struggle that took Europe centuries to even approach, and whose history is embedded in Europe’s DNA. From the trial of Socrates, to  John Milton’s seminal refutation of censorship, Areopagitica, there has been a constant fight to defend the right of individuals to exercise their natural right to speak and write unmolested by the state. Unfortunately, that right has fallen victim to a pincer movement of centralized European Union bureaucracy and a revanchist, violent, muscular Islam unleashed by Europe’s lax immigration policies.

That’s why I’m pleased to bring you news of an upcoming talk by Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a tireless human rights activist who herself has been persecuted for expressing opinions that those in power view as inimical to political correctness, i.e. offensive to Islam. You can find out how to RSVP to this undoubtedly illuminating lecture by clicking upon her name-you must RSVP by the end of today.

One of the most astute, prolific critics of the growing threat posed by Islamism to the United Kingdom-and the West in general-is Douglas Murray. Some of you might remember him from the Intelligence Squared debate where he teamed up with human rights activist and apostate from Islam Ayaan Hirsi Ali to refute the proposition that Islam Is a Religion of Peace. Now he’s written a book that takes to task those-mostly on the left, but across the political spectrum-who would continue to defend the religious precepts animating the Woolwich butchers and those rampaging across Stockholm out of ideological solidarity. Islamophilia: A Very Metropolitan Malady is not only timely, but pivotal to understanding the incoherent thinking that is the ethos  of the illiberal consensus.

Read it, before it’s too late. 

Art Credit: Bosh Fawstin.

One image taken from the pro-Hamas rally held by Al-Awda NY, among other anti-Israel organizations, in Times Square this weekend. I wish I could say that it was anomalous in some way, but the inexorable truth is that the physically and intellectually etiolated creature you see above was probably as representative of the spirit of this demonstration as any of the participants. That a decrepit red diaper baby extolled the Marxist, Latin American despot Hugo Chavez  is not surprising, although neither should be his admiration for Chavez’s staunch ally Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A man who shares with his equally anti-Semitic friend a history of manipulating election results.

The domestic alliance between socialist and communist true believers and obscurantist, apocalyptic Islam is mirrored to a large degree in the Gaza Strip itself, where rejectionist strands of the PLO, such as the Marxist-Leninist PFLP, join forces with the Al-Qassam Brigades in shelling Israeli civilians. I’m not sure what end game the Trotskyites in the Spartacist League have in mind, but I have the nagging suspicion it doesn’t quite sync with the ultimate goals of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or the Al Qaeda-inspired salafists currently vying for control of the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

While useful idiots are pivotal to the success of any totalitarian revolution, once the despised tyrant is dethroned, they are more often than not treated to a dose of revolutionary justice. Perhaps some of these reactionary leftists should have a conversation with MEK exiles in order to learn about the pitfalls of yoking your cause to an ideology which relentlessly persecutes atheists, at its best.

Granted, it’s possible that militant Stalinists and those who want to eradicate any remnant of Judaism from the Jewish State might be able to co-exist, but it seems like those who would want to kill for the Al Aqsa Mosque might be of a different hue than those who would kill for dialectical materialism.

Although I doubt such discussions would prove fruitful, as the inclination for affinity groups and Marxist ideologues to view Arab-Muslims, particularly those living on the outskirts of Israel, as perpetually downtrodden and oppressed-the eternal underdog-is impenetrable to reason and empirical evidence. A sign of this enduring myth is the Puerto Rican flag seen above, probably held aloft by an independentista, who’ll no doubt have more time to demonize Israel in a few years, once that island’s ambiguous political status is permanently resolved.

One of the incongruities of this particular anti-Israel demonstration-although it must be said, leftists and their allies have never been known for their philosophical integrity or ideological coherency-was the strange, ritualistic incantations against “hate” followed immediately thereafter by the most noxious expressions of hatred and contempt.  For example, the repeated chant “Stop the violence, stop the hate,” which was quickly followed on the down beat by “Israel is a terrorist state!”

Pardon my impertinence, but isn’t categorizing a nation of nearly eight million distinct individuals as racist a bit hateful, not to mention insinuating that this country is perpetrating genocide? The latter charge is especially curious, considering the fact that casualties from Israeli weaponry-including the deaths of confirmed terrorists-during this conflict number fewer than the toll of Palestinians Hamas murdered during the 2007 putsch which resulted in its seizure of power from Fatah.

What’s more, the Palestinians killed during this conflict number less than a tenth of those “collaborators” murdered without trial during the first intifada.

Unfortunately, as you can see, this unique interpretation of justice is still avidly practiced by those in charge of the Gaza Strip.

If the concern trolls who detest Israel so much really want to see a state that perpetrates genocide, perhaps they should cast their eyes north.

It’s reassuring to imagine that a certain cognitive dissonance is at play when the most demagogic critics of Israel regurgitate their talking points and deploy some of their more eye-catching imagery-such as that seen on the placard above. Unfortunately, I don’t think they recognize the inherent disconnect between accusing Israel of slaughtering children while simultaneously standing behind a group which indoctrinates Palestinian children from the time they can walk into a culture of jihadist, exterminatory violence. To say nothing of the cynical exploitation of Palestinian women and children as human shields for terrorist leaders.

The sincerity of their denunciations of Israeli “hate” were called into question again when the mixed Palestinian fanatic/desiccated Marxist crowd began to shout “Yassin, Yassin, do not cry; Palestine will never die!” While it’s possible that they were referring to a controversial military engagement that occurred during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the fact that this was a pro-Hamas rally leads one to the ineluctable conclusion that they were celebrating the life of a man responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians, including those who have died as a result of the current bloodshed.

As odd as it might seem, the most ideologically coherent contingent, aside from the keffiyeh and hijab-clad Palestinians echoing the historical demand that Israelis be pushed into the sea, was the cultish faction of Neturei Karta seen in the photograph above. Whether meeting with Holocaust enthusiast Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or breaking bread with Yasser Arafat, a protege of Adolf Hitler’s Middle Eastern Reichsführer, NK has made it abundantly clear that it despises the state of Israel as it currently exists.

Of course, this is a free country. You’re entitled to express your opinion, however loathsome, so long as it doesn’t trespass against the life and safety of another individual or group of citizens. That said, I have to say the pretense that most of the people gathered in Times Square care about the lives of ordinary Muslim women and children living in the Gaza Strip is hard to digest.

It’s especially difficult to conceive of a scenario where they would bemoan the fate of these particular Muslims if their suffering bore no relation to Israel. You need look no further than a perpetrator of actual genocide, the Baathist Assad dynasty, in order to apprehend this concept. More than three times as many Palestinians have been killed in Syria during its civil war than have perished in the current conflict, yet you see no comparable sense of outrage among these indignant, alleged supporters of the Palestinian cause.

Apparently, their lives are not worth as much as the ones inserted into a meta-narrative designed by Hamas to manipulate international news media. In our next post, we’ll look at the other side of the coin.

Most New Yorkers-especially natives-are inured to the daily spectacle which makes their city something of a super-sized freak show. However, most of the time that sideshow is of the sort one normally expects to see in Coney Island, i.e. entertaining enough as a diversionary pursuit, but not so garish or mind-altering as to force you to reconsider your general opinion of humanity.

However, every year the United Nations General Assembly-the Mos Eisley Cantina of international diplomacy-convenes in Turtle Bay so that ostensible heads of state from around the world can make pompous, almost universally forgettable speeches before an assembled crowd of profligate diplomats, spies, Islamic terrorists,  despots and indicted war criminals, among other political luminaries you would expect to find addressing an institution that was once headed by a man complicit in Nazi Germany’s numerous war atrocities in the Balkans.

Of course, because this collection of malefactors great and small decides to make New York City the backdrop for political theater-bankrolled by American taxpayers, of course-it means that the normally colorful streets of New York are graced with an even more eclectic selection of humanity. Including, as you’ll notice by glancing at the photograph atop this page, fans of newly elected Egyptian pharaoh and fan of sharia law Mohammed Morsi.

The first sight that greeted me before arriving at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza was, oddly enough, a group of fervent devotees-including the group of veiled women seen above-of the Muslim Brotherhood, i.e. the organization that’s served as the intellectual seedbed of virtually every pan-Islamic jihadist and/or terrorist movement that’s arisen over the past century. I know what you must be thinking at this point: “Ain’t multiculturalism grand?”

This being a free country, where everyone is allowed to voice his or her opinion-for the most part, at least-there were two bold Egyptian Christians willing to counter the Islamic supremacist perspective espoused by Mohammed Morsi’s New York welcoming committee.

One of the interesting aspects of this small band of counter-protestors was their devotion to their native land. Like Ashraf Ramelah, they obviously consider themselves true Egyptians, even if their Muslim countrymen vigorously disagree with that assessment.

A slightly more baffling sight confronted me as I made my way deeper into the protest pen cordoned off by the NYPD. I’m not quite certain why the man above chose the United Nations for his platform-which seemed to focus upon the inerrancy of Biblical prophecy-although he undoubtedly could have had a feisty conversation about millenarianism with one of the UN’s featured speakers this week.

Needless to say, there were individuals and groups there with a much less eschatological message, one of the most prominent among them being exponents of Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa teachings. In addition to practicing their meditative exercises, these Chinese men and women-most of whom probably can’t return to their homeland, for obvious reasons-highlighted the torture-such as that depicted in the drawings above-experienced by Falun Gong practitioners at the hands of the Chinese regime.

In addition to the routine harassment and imprisonment experienced by anyone in the People’s Republic of China expressing political, philosophical or spiritual beliefs not sanctioned by the ruling Chinese Communist Party oligarchy, Falun Gong adherents have the misfortune of being perceived as an organized political opposition.

Therefore, its followers are subject to a range of horrific penalties, such as the CCP’s penchant for organ-harvesting from those within China’s extensive laogai.

One need only glance at the starkness of contrast between the two photos seen above in order to grasp the horrors inflicted upon ordinary Chinese citizens who run afoul of the their government’s perverse political priorities.

While I don’t have enough information about the subject to state, without reservation, that Falun Gong is “good,” I do know enough to assert that the state which persecutes its followers-and is responsible for the tableau seen in the photograph below-is not.

And although Chinese dissidents were well represented on Wednesday, the vast majority of protestors were assembled to rally against the current Iranian regime, which most regard as criminal in nature, if not so ghastly as to invoke images of one of cinematic horror’s most reviled figures.

One of the more striking features of the anti-IRI activities this week was the artistic dimension of the protests. Some of the efforts seemed redolent of typical political agitprop, using a caricature of Ahmadinejad’s physical features while pointing out the bloody hands of the current president…

As well as his well-publicized Holocaust denial, which was tied into the Iranian regime’s somewhat implausible claims about its nuclear program.

That said, there were some clever, less obvious mockeries of Ahmadinejad, such as the “I’m with stupid” cut-out seen below.

As well as the doormat with the dictator’s face emblazoned upon it, created by United Against a Nuclear Iran, a nonpartisan organization founded by  former ambassador to the United Nations Mark Wallace, which is dedicated to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

One of their campaigns, prior to Ahmadinejad’s arrival in New York, was a call to boycott the Warwick Hotel, which hosted the Iranian leader’s large entourage while he was staying in the Big Apple. Personally, I don’t find the Warwick’s decision nearly as objectionable as the one that allowed he and his cronies to set foot on American soil.

The “silent” partnership alluded to in the above poster is a reference to the unusual relationship between the Iranian regime and the leadership of Al Qaeda, much of which sought refuge in Iran after the September 11th attacks. Although the nature of this relationship is a matter of great dispute, the fact that Iran has been willing to support Afghan, Sunni insurgents-including the Taliban-with both tactics and weaponry is something to consider before dismissing the allegation out of hand.

One of the chief organizers of the protests against the clerical dictatorship of Iran was Iran 180. The UNwelcome campaign consisted of a combination of street theater and personal testimony from Iranian-Americans about the true nature of the Khomeinist regime.

FWIW, I felt some sympathy for the individual inside of the gigantic mock head, especially considering the unusually warm temperature that day. I do credit his enthusiasm-possibly the most entertaining part of this street theater being his pantomiming bass-playing on what I think was intended to be a machine gun as For Whom The Bell Tolls played in the background.

One of the costumed personages represented the real ruler of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei. Under velayat-e-faqih, he-along with an equally undemocratic clique of obscurantist Shiite clerics and politically connected hacks-determines the course of Iranian domestic and foreign affairs, as recent events demonstrate.

One of the main, if largely unspoken, themes of the rally was the incestuous relationship between the IRI and the blood-soaked Baathist regime which currently rules Syria. Although the alliance between the government of Iran and that of Syria has been in place for over three decades-virtually since the inception of the Islamic Republic-the imminent threat of Bashar al-Assad’s political demise has forced that blood pact into the open. In fact, the symbiotic nature of the relationship has become so transparent that even Iran’s leading officials have trouble denying it.

Even though foreign policy played a prominent role in Iran 180′s demonstration, there was also a lengthy exposition of the domestic crimes of the Iranian regime, especially with respect to religious, ethnic, and sexual minorities. Gigi Nikpour, the woman seen above, described how the clerical regime which controls Iran had institutionalized many of the canonical aspects of Islam, including Koranic injunctions against homosexuality. These religious proscriptions are not merely theoretical points of discussion, as the scores of gay men and lesbians executed by the theocratic regime in Tehran illustrate.

This is yet another reason why the ubiquitous creeping sharia the rest of the country has just become aware of poses such an ominous threat. It seeks not only to regulate and/or circumscribe our thoughts and speech, but dictate the most minute aspects of our private lives and daily behavior, and eliminate those activities its enforcers deem contrary to the tenets of Islam.

In our next post we’ll explore one of the groups that helped propel these Koran-thumping megalomaniacs to power in Iran, but who soon found that the enemies of Islam are manifold, and subject to arbitrary changes depending upon the needs and political whims of the revolution.

Flags of Freedom.

So goes the poem by iconic English writer Rudyard Kipling, a man who brilliantly limned the boundaries-be they political, cultural, or mental-which separate the East from the West. However, one commonality that both share, unfortunately, is the proliferation of a muscular, revanchist Islam intent upon dominating, if not eliminating altogether, its perceived adversaries. The penultimate panel of the Stop Islamization of Nations Congress examined countries which find themselves mired in “Stage 3″ of the illness known as Islamic jihad, as we heard from three distinguished freedom activists who hail from societies which are on the front lines of the clash of civilizations.

Credit: Atlas Shrugs 

Considering that the spark for this latest iteration of global jihad was touched off in Cairo, it’s only appropriate that Ashraf Rameleh, the founder and president of the Voice of the Copts, spoke to the assembled about the 14 century-long subjugation of indigenous Egyptians by the forces of Islam. He contextualized the violence unleashed against Egypt’s remnant of believers in Christ by the Muslim Brotherhood and its Salafist allies by recounting his own personal biography, which has led him from being a persecuted minority within his homeland to a successful post-graduate education and architectural career in both Italy and the United States. The 9/11 attacks initiated by Al Qaeda upon his adopted homeland prompted him to delve more deeply into the world of anti-Islamist, pro-freedom political activism, the center of which became a campaign to raise awareness about the besieged community of Coptic Christians living in Egypt.

Although Copts were beleaguered iconoclasts among the Christian establishment of the Byzantine Empire, the true tragedy of their story began to unfold with the invasion of Egypt  by Umar’s Islamic armies. After several centuries, and the imposition of the jizya upon non-Islamic subjects, their country was transmuted into the Arab-Muslim state we’ve now come to associate with political and social regression, as well as both international and domestic terrorism.

However, even after Egypt had been fully conquered by the descendants of Mohammed, the full complement of sharia law was not implemented for many years. The provisional constitution of 2011 enshrines the primacy of Islam as a source of legislation, a plank that will inevitably be carried over into the new constitution. The warnings voiced by Ashraf Rameleh are important because they foreshadow the path our own country might take if we make any concessions to the notion of a dual legal system which recognizes sharia-either in civil or criminal matters.

The call by Mohammed Morsi to ban speech Muslims consider blasphemous is merely the prelude to a wider war the resurgent ummah and its allies will wage against the freedoms we once treasured in the West. By being the proverbial canary in the coal mine, Egypt’s Coptic Christians serve as a template for what will we happen if we don’t resist the forces harnessed on behalf of Muslim rage. By continuing to yield our freedoms to a totalitarian ideology, we are ensuring that the Copts will not be the last victims of the jihadist mentality.

Someone who is intimately familiar with that way of thinking is  Mordechai Kedar, an Arabic literature scholar from Bar-Ilan University. Dr. Kedar noted that his country, Israel, was under constant bombardment from its foes not merely because of its unique character as the sole Jewish state, but also because it serves as a symbolic avatar of the United States; little Satan to our Great Satan. The freedoms, including freedom of speech, which Israelis esteem are the same freedoms that Americans enjoy, but which is under withering attack by institutional forces sympathetic to Islam.

One of the more intriguing aspects of his speech touched upon the dichotomous nature of Islam’s response to criticism of its holy book and prophet, and by extension, its core religious tenets. He made the astute observation that Islam is not opposed to criticism per se, a point illustrated by the rejection-and conversely, codification-of certain hadiths that met with either approval or disapproval among the ruling ulama. No, what Islam’s adherents categorically reject is criticism and/or dissent from Islamic dogma by non-Muslims, i.e. kufr. Because Islam views itself as superior to all other faith systems, it cannot scruple any evidence that contradicts the revealed truth of the Koran which emanates from Christians or Jews, much less Hindus, Buddhists or atheists.

It is precisely this sense of superiority which makes the wave of Islamic immigration which has submerged the continent of Europe over the past half-century such an existential crisis. Dr. Kader’s identification of the demographic implosion European nations have undergone in the past half-century-and its attempt to mask this dilemma by importing bodies from the Middle East and North Africa-is not a novel concept. See Mark Steyn. However, I appreciated his honesty in pinpointing one of the main reasons for this crisis. Namely, the lack of will among Europeans to produce future generations of Europeans. The mass influx of Muslim immigrants into EU countries can be traced to a number of factors, but two of the most prominent-as Dr. Kader delineated in his speech-are the attempt by their nations of origin to displace economic-hence, political-discontent, and the slow, yet inexorable, death spiral of Europe. Personally, I don’t think Dr. Kader spent enough time examining the fundamentally undemocratic nature of Europe’s management of mass immigration, but I do applaud his refreshing willingness to “call a spade a spade.”

An equally blunt assessment of the dire nature of the threat Asia-and by inference, the West-faces came from Babu Suseelan, who hails from India, a cautionary tale on the perils of inter-communal relations, especially within those nations whose inhabitants disagree with regard to the virtue of Islamic teachings. Although most here might remember the exchange of citizens that occurred between India and Pakistan after the former’s postcolonial partition in 1949, what most aren’t aware of is the fact that over thirteen percent of the Indian population remains committed to various forms of Islam.

Although often portrayed as a tolerant, peaceful minority within the larger mosaic of a multi-confessional state, Muslims within India have had a checkered past that begins with the 7th century Arab-Muslim invasions of Punjab and Sindh and continued with a series of holocausts which-as Dr. Suseelan noted-have no equal in the history of religious persecution, and whose number of victims are conservatively placed at 80 million. Deobandism  takes its name from a center of Islamic “learning” that-although touted for its deceptively pacific overtures-is the Indian analogue to the obscurantist Islamic doctrine which took down the World Trade Center, and is responsible for the wave of “martyrs” who regularly slaughter innocents throughout the Indian subcontinent and South and Central Asia.

Yet the true threat posed by Islam is not merely terrorist violence-as horrific as this manifestation of jihad might be-which is merely an expedient to an end, rather than an end in itself. The mortal threat inherent in Islam is its persistent ability to circumscribe the terms of debate and discussion in heretofore open societies. The decision by the government of Rajiv Gandhi to ban the importation of The Satanic Verses, and the fact that public readings of this work are not allowed to take place-even as its author promotes his new memoir recounting his years in hiding from Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa-is testament to the enduring power of Islam to silence its critics, even in purportedly free societies. We’ve already witnessed scenes on American soil that are reminiscent of courageous Bengali writer Taslima Nasreen’s flight from India; how long before the right to dissent from Islamic orthodoxy is proscribed altogether? The banning of books is the gateway to the banning of ideas.

This is precisely why the question of Islam’s place in Western society must be debated and discussed openly, especially in countries like ours, which still has yet to bear the full brunt of a comprehensive ideology which seeks to consign its critics to the same fate as that of the courageous refuseniks who rejected the groupthink imposed by leaders of the former USSR. Whether the resolution to this problem is to enact a wholesale ban on Muslim immigration-as Mr. Susaleen suggests-remains to be seen. However, what can’t be denied is that the cavalier attitude we have towards the migration of millions human beings whose values and mindset are incontestably opposed to ours has not worked, and must be challenged on every level.

In our fourth and final part, we’ll reveal how this challenge is unfolding in Europe, the birthplace of Western civilization and one of the prime battlegrounds in the global battle for freedom of thought and expression.

The global jihad against speech-aided and abetted by our enemedia-was the primary subject of discussion at the SION conference this past Tuesday, and the panels assembled represented the full spectrum of thought and action that is being suppressed as a result of the collaboration between government officials-both elected and unelected-intent on “managing” our ever-diminishing pool of  liberty, the custodians of the fifth estate, and the presumptive caliphate which is using them as its ideological cat’s paw. The mobs overwhelming embassies in North Africa and the Middle East and slaughtering American citizens represent the physical violence that most associate with the term jihad, yet there is another more potent element of jihadist doctrine which involves employing coercive means more subtle than car bombs, rocket propelled-grenades, and Kalashnikovs.

The most powerful and efficacious weapon against jihadist ideology is, in fact, the truth. Which is why the vanguards of Islam and their accomplices go to such great lengths in order to suppress the means through which the truth is disseminated. That was the main theme of the second panel of the Stop Islamization of Nations Congress, which comprised men and women from England-until recently, one of the most resilient bastions of free expression on the planet-and Australia, a much younger parliamentary democracy whose citizens find themselves caught beneath a resurgent Islamic tidal wave facilitated by its leaders abandonment of sound immigration policy.

Debbie Robinson, of the Q Society, gave us a detailed overview of the parlous situation Australians find themselves in due to the proliferation of Muslim immigrants faithful to the Koran now living on a continent built upon British common law. The most recent  manifestation of this danger can be found in Muslim Brotherhood acolytes calling for the summary execution of the filmmaker who, in their eyes, committed blasphemy, exploiting the very freedom which they could never hope to enjoy in one of the many despotic Muslim nations from which they emigrated.

However, the question of sharia law’s application in Australia is not one of recent vintage, despite the befuddled media coverage of jihadi demonstrations in that nation’s capital this week. In fact, it is a question which has become so embedded within national discourse that a former Chief Justice of Australia has publicly rejected the notion that sharia law can coexist with the laws of his country. You need look no further than the scourging  a convert to Wahabbism received at the hands of his masked attackers to realize that this isn’t a theoretical debate for Australians. Is it really that far-fetched to conceive of a day when the punishment meted out to a member of the Burns’ Gang in the drama The Proposition might befall the unfortunate recipient of justice from a sharia court?

That question is even more pertinent to the men who came to New York City from England, which some would characterize as Ground Zero in the war between Islamic supremacism and Western societal norms.

Kevin Carroll of the English Defense League-seen above-described some of the battles in this titanic struggle. Currently running for sheriff in a newly created constituency, Mr. Carroll and other members of the EDL have been subjected not only to physical attacks-some so violent as to require hospitalization-by crypto-fascist, Marxist goon squads and their Islamist accomplices, but have been persecuted by the English authorities, which view those exercising their rights to assemble lawfully and express support for the United Kingdom as posing more of an exigent threat than those organizing terror plots in what is now the hub of pan-Islamic nationalism and jihad within Europe.

The extent to which the inherent rights exercised by Englishmen and women have been curtailed in the name of insulating Islam and its practitioners from any substantive criticism was brought home by Tommy Robinson, the founder and leader of the English Defense League. A life-long resident of town of Luton in the county of Bedfordshire, England,  Robinson embodies the selfless patriotism and commitment to family that were once hallmarks of the English working class. Unfortunately, today he represents a besieged minority under attack on the streets, in the courtroom, and in the yellow press for defending what the intelligentsia consider antiquated notions of Englishness. Instead of resisting the Islamists and their leftist shock troops who are threatening the lives of Robinson and his family, the British police have instructed him to remove himself from Luton-his childhood home-lest he antagonize the Muslim supremacists behind  one of England’s numerous, unofficial Sharia law zones.

The skewed priorities of UK law enforcement-which view the EDL as posing a more exigent threat than the intellectual progeny of Bin Laden did not come as a surprise. What did strike me though was Tommy Robinson’s almost apologetic defense of the gifts he brings to bear in this struggle against Islamic nationalism and its infection of contemporary Europe. He made the inexorable point that, unlike the rest of the continent, Great Britain-with a few notable exceptions-does not have any towering intellectuals or courageous political leaders to rally public opinion on behalf of the Enlightenment values which are now imperiled. The political class within the UK is effectively neutered, spinelessness being virtually a prerequisite for public office, as Tommy and his cousin Kevin Carroll pointed out during their speeches.

The same can be said of most British pseudo-intellectuals, who are equally culpable for the disastrous cultural and spiritual degradation of contemporary Great Britain. The political extermination Northern Irish classicist, poet and parliamentarian Enoch Powell experienced at the hands of England’s opinion-shapers for daring to question the status quo is one of the main reasons why the fight against Islamist ideology is being led by men like Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll, although I don’t believe either man has to qualify the vitally important elements of courage and honesty in identifying the problems facing Britain they both bring to this task. After all, the battle over whether sharia law and Islamic doctrine should prevail over the values of the Magna Carta and the Glorious Revolution will be decided in the streets and the homes of ordinary Britons, not intellectual salons in London.

That said, the address delivered by George Igler, the creator of the Discourse Institute, outlined the intellectual argument against the UK’s increasingly restrictive view of individual liberty. At least, that liberty not enjoyed by Islamic ideologues. The son of parents who experienced the absence of liberty firsthand behind the Iron Curtain of Communist Hungary, Igler recognizes the inherent tenuousness of liberties that most Westerners have taken for granted for centuries. His speech focused upon the ways in which British bureaucrats and politicians had distorted the relationship between man and state, pointing out that our sufferance of government is tied exclusively to the protection of inalienable-and non government-derived-rights. This compact has been abrogated by a state that now views its function as maintaining stability in inter-communal relations, which means that some groups, e.g. Muslim immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bosnia-as well as their offspring-are given protection from the critical speech of groups like the EDL. This fundamental negation of rights illustrates why conferences like the Stop Islamization of Nations Congress are so urgent at this moment in time.

They, along with the Discourse Institute, wouldn’t be necessary if the “free” press exercised its right to dissent from political and religious orthodoxy, rather than attempting to hunt down individuals who blasphemed Islam or to blacken the name of patriotic citizens who want to ensure that their children enjoy the same freedoms they once did. But the fact remains that we are not only facing an aggressive, resurgent political Islam, but a much greater threat posed by those who would do away with our patrimony from England, and ultimately, Greece, in order to placate the sensitivities of an ideology with whom no mutual reciprocity exists and which, according to its holy book-none can be achieved.

In Part III of our report, we’ll be examining how the threat of Islamic jihad is experienced by those in the continent from which the armies of Mohammed first emerged.