h/t Pamela Hall

It’s a message which bears repeating. An inspired idea from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, these billboards point out the horrific reality behind Marxism’s edifice of lies.

Whether it’s the specter of famine in Venezuela, the terror inflicted by Maoists upon innocent Indians for decades, or the Kim dynasty’s ruthless campaign to instill fear in every one of its subjects-no matter how far removed they are from North Korea itself-collectivism has sown nothing but misery and hopelessness wherever it’s been implemented.

Communism is responsible for more deaths than suicide, World War II, and all of the civil wars which took place during the 20th century. It has left a black legacy, and continues to oppress over 20% of the globe, including the more than 1 billion people living in the People’s Republic of China. A nation where the treatment of citizens like livestock didn’t end with the Cultural Revolution.

The disease of Communism persists in Cuba, where despite the regime’s purported detente with the United States, dissidents continue to be persecuted, often until they cease to exist. Let no one ever say that Communist despots and their foot soldiers weren’t thorough.

-We begin today’s rattle with an interesting story about an Indian-or Muslim, depending upon PR needs of the open borders squad-athlete who was ushered into this country by our very own Senator Chuck Schumer. Unfortunately, this gifted sportsman is also a sex offender. Perhaps this isn’t quite as bad as having an alien interning for your office who is also a registered sex offender, but it does make you question the collective wisdom of our Democratic friends in Congress. Maybe we shouldn’t be taking their advice, vis-a-vis, controversial immigration decisions made by the Executive branch.

-In a reminder that there are actually rational people living in The People’s Republic of Vermont, the voters of Rutland have just turned out their incumbent mayor, Chris Louras, after he attempted to deluge their town with Muslim refugees from Syria and Iraq. While ignoring the public’s deep discontent with our government’s refugee resettlement programs-when not imputing racism and bigotry to Americans who express reservations about these schemes-is the norm, even the alternative weekly was forced to concede the enormous political consequences of this decision.

-For those of you who were wondering whatever happened to the thousands of unaccompanied minors who were allowed to enter into this country, wonder no more. According to an in-depth backgrounder from the Center for Immigration Studies, our government has absolutely no clue what it’s doing. While over 80 percent of their sponsors are illegal aliens, 44 percent of the UACs in question were ordered deported. Have the vast majority of these children been deported? Of course not, silly!

-You may ask yourself, “Why is this important?” It’s a good question. After all, it’s not as if these individuals will bring brutal Central American inter-gang warfare to the placidity of our nation’s suburbs, right? Well, I have some bad news for you on that score. It turns out that Latin American gangs, including MS-13, one of the most prolific and ruthless criminal networks in the Western Hemisphere, has actually established a pretty firm beachhead in our own backyard. Naturally, almost all of these gangbangers are criminal aliens. In an ironic twist, the moniker of the man who made an abortive attempt to unify the Mara Salvatrucha within the United States is, you guessed it, Dreamer.

-For those of you who think Europe’s approach to immigration is any less self-defeating and preposterous than the United States, I give you France. A nation where municipal authorities in Calais are attempting to prevent thousands of migrants from recreating the notorious refugee camp known as The Jungle. The biggest proponents of turning The Camp of the Saints into reality are, of course, other Europeans who believe Western civilization is uniquely evil. The ostensible plight of migrants from the third world is simply a cudgel with which the Gramscian left-with the help of corporate bean counters-can beat native Europeans into submission.

-After all, what are a few dozen, or a few hundred, honor killings in the grand scheme of things? Is the systemic dehumanization and murder of girls in nations which were responsible for the idea of religious toleration and freedom of conscience too high a price to pay for erecting the beautiful mosaic? When bad whites are saying intemperate, obnoxious things about people who are off-white, doesn’t that negate their entire philosophical worldview?  Even if that perspective is confirmed multiple times every single day?

-Everyone knows that the real reason millions of Muslims across the world support ISIS, Al Qaeda, and similar jihadist networks is because there isn’t enough inclusion in Hollywood casting decisions. See, the real villain isn’t Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It’s those bastards who refused to green light an all-Muslim reboot of Star Trek!

-The cognitive dissonance at work in the mind of an an open borders leftist must be overpowering. They want to live in a high-trust, quasi-collectivist techno-utopia-along the lines of something created by Gene Roddenberry-yet simultaneously support policies which make this already far-fetched goal virtually impossible. The mentality of a social justice warrior in high dudgeon can be found in this VICE piece, which laments the role homeless shelters have been playing in the deportation of migrants. The traditional liberal concern for the working class and the poor is discarded when it conflicts with the categorical imperative, i.e. preserving diversity. The spiritual hollowness and intellectual vapidity of this type of leftist ‘thinking’ was brilliantly and caustically skewered by George Orwell nearly a century ago. It’s good to know that some things haven’t changed all that much.

-I’d like to leave you on a good note, so here’s some refreshing news to come out of Austria. 8 Iraqi men have been convicted of the gang rape of a tourist. Unlike the Middle Eastern cab driver in Halifax who was, to all intents and purposes, high-fived by a Nova Scotia judge for raping an unconscious passenger, these rapists were actually given (relatively) stiff prison sentences. What’s more, we’ve discovered that these horrific incidents actually constitute an anomaly within the Islamic immigrant community.

Migrants and refugees from other countries expressed concern that the crime will make Austrians hostile toward all newcomers.

“Eight people raping a woman — that’s honor-less! Such a thing doesn’t exist in our religion,” Burhan Akbas, a migrant from Turkey, said.

“When such people come here and screw up like that, then everybody will think that Chechens, Afghans, all refugees from war areas are all the same,” Mansur Salamou, an asylum-seeker from Chechnya, said. “But it’s not like that. For example, the majority of us — we also cause problems, commit crimes. But no rape! Only criminal assaults and robberies.”

See, Europeans?! You only have to worry about being assaulted and robbed by the millions of North African and Middle Eastern refugees and migrants making their way towards Europe. What a relief.

Rather than sit through the inevitable anticlimax which is Sir Hillary’s acceptance speech, why not watch the documentary which crystallizes just how nakedly corrupt the would-be First Family is? BTW, isn’t it funny how none of the critics of this ground-breaking documentary and book have taken up its author’s challenge to debate the merits of his well-documented dissection of Clinton family corruption? I wonder why that is.

Happy Easter for those of you who observe Pasch in this country and throughout the world. Unfortunately, many Christians aren’t able to celebrate this holy day because of a certain pacific religion which originated in the Arabian Peninsula. Their persecution throughout the Middle East and Africa-as well as any other region where the companions of Mohammed find themselves in numbers great enough to  exert their will-is a fact which can’t be denied or explained away. Alas, that zone of imperilment now includes the continent of Europe, which has seen plenty of carnage because of its leaders decision to welcome millions of Muslim settlers.

As Mark Steyn points out, this violence has been meted out even to people who are ostensibly devout Muslims, but whose actions or principles run afoul of  current Islamic dogma. The sheer brutality and gruesomeness of this murderous assault calls to mind the near decapitation of 2nd Battalion Drummer Lee Rigby, who was dispatched by 2 Muslim converts in an equally cowardly manner. That Belgian police are attempting to dissuade people from holding a tribute to the victims of the Brussels massacre because it has become an Islamic cantonment-eagerly trying to acquire fissile material-tells you all you need to know about who really controls Europe.

How many more times people in Belgium or Scotland will able to celebrate Resurrection Sunday remains to be seen, but current trends do not look promising.

It seems like the world’s most peaceful religion just can’t keep itself out of the headlines these days. On the heels of repeated attempts to assassinate artists and writers, the foot soldiers of Allah meticulously murdered over 60 infidels yesterday in a spate of terror that stretched from Kuwait to France. Although the attack outside of Lyon resulted in the fewest casualties, it’s probably the most relevant to the American public. The massacre on the Tunisian beach is in keeping with pan-Islamic terrorist networks policy of attacking economic interests-particularly those which rely upon Western tourism-in order to undermine local governments, while the explosion at a Shiite mosque in Kuwait is drearily predictable.

The attempted bombing in France, on the other hand, fits a pattern of  domestic terror attacks perpetrated by Muslims who were imported to the West from the Middle East and North Africa. The notion that resettling tens of thousands of Muslim refugees in the heart of Europe will decrease the likelihood of these events recurring in the future is lunacy, albeit of a kind distressingly familiar in the councils of Europe. This is why it’s imperative that free people tell the truth about Islam and the failures of multiculturalism and third world immigration while we still can.

Update: Audio of the moment the attack commenced. 

As we saw during the horrific attacks in France, the Pakistani siege of Mumbai, and almost every other recent jihadist wave, the small minority of extremists have carefully selected their next targets. Courtesy of World Post, an account of the attack on a Copenhagen synagogue. 

A physical description of  the chief suspect has been released. 

Live updates from The Daily Telegraph. Including footage of the shooting’s aftermath. 

1 dead, several injured, according to the latest reports. The suspect remains at large. 

It seems like followers of the prophet who shall not be named (PWSNBN) are at it again. BBC News has the news alert, which we’ll update as the day progresses. It seems like our good friend Lars Vilks was the target of TROP(tm) once again.

Let’s keep our eyes on the ball, friends.

The purpose of  last Wednesday’s events, like the marches and rallies staged on Cinco de Mayo, was to pressure elected officials in Washington D.C. into repeating the same disastrous mistakes of the past. In this case, a wholesale amnesty which would cost upwards of six trillion dollars in the coming decades. While most of the people gathered in Union Square were open borders advocates of one sort or another, there was a spirited contingent of counter-protestors from New Yorkers for Immigration Control and Enforcement, a.k.a. NY ICE, whom I’ll get to in due time.

There were several journalists eager to cover the pro-legalization marchers, including a reporter-and I use that term advisedly-from the New York City affiliate of Noticias Mundo, a Spanish-language collaboration between Colombian channel RCN and cheap labor enthusiast Rupert Murdorch’s chief American asset, Newscorp.

And while there were many people agitated over the immigration-and the various proposals floating around Congress that purport to address the subject-as with any reasonably large demonstration spearheaded by the left, mission creep was evident from the beginning. The issue sprawl ranged all the way from global concerns, such as the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership…

…to more localized grievances, such as the cascading effects of the U.S. Postal Service’s insolvency, as well as the recently resolved school bus strike in the City.

The parlous state of our city’s public education system was also addressed-in both English and Spanish.

And of course, plenty of protesters blamed the dreaded process of sequestration-whose impact verges on the apocalyptic according to some analysts-for the plight of specific ethnic groups and economic classes.

The Sequester Game was an attempt to inject some levity into an otherwise earnest day of political sloganeering and ideological indoctrination.

One that drew upon traditional May Day tropes, such as this Maypole inscribed with exhortations to pursue various political projects of concern to the left. Although traditionally viewed as a festival heralding the arrival of spring, it is now an occasion which has been colonized by  those with a Marxist interpretation of history.

The top of the pole was graced by a papier-mâché babushka bearing a placard with a statement just as  ambiguous as her facial expression. 

I saw a few familiar faces in the crowd, including the attractive young rollerblader who played the part of  a money bunny at an Occupy Wall Street rally held in Bryant Park last year. Rather than targeting her ire at Herr Bloomberg-whose last term is mercifully drawing to a close-she took aim at some of the investment banks which have balanced their ledger sheet by feeding at the public trough. One of the most conspicuous offenders in this regard, CEO of JP Morgan Chase Jamie Dimon, is depicted in the effigy seen above. A man who not only benefits from outright wealth transfers from American taxpayers, but also regulatory structures that inhibit competition. Pretty much the antithesis of capitalism, as it’s correctly understand.

One group that continues to loosely align itself with OWS is Anonymous.

If nothing else, the market for Guy Fawkes masks remains robust.

Although I’m not sure wearing them while manning literature tables is their intended usage.

Speaking of literature booths, there were a lot of them in Union Square Park, including those run by Marx’s bête noire, i.e. anarchists.

They had a variety of pamphlets, including one exploring the concept of jury nullification.

Socialism today, socialism tomorrow, socialism…well, you get the picture.

The alternative to what? Prosperity and freedom, perhaps. Unfortunately, socialism and/or corporatism is the default economic setting for much of the world today, with a few notable exceptions.

The apex of socialism, of course, can be found in the proposition that the state exercises final authority over  its subjects’ bodies. Notwithstanding the fact that the lawmakers who crafted Obamacare are already fleeing from its consequences, there are still millions of people willing to go further down the rabbit hole of wholly socialized medicine.

I’m sure among those can be counted the Trotskyists who were gathered in Union Square.

As well as the small coterie of Bolsheviks I found as I made my way through the police barricades erected in anticipation of this event.

The woman wearing the strange, black and green biohazard cap was apparently in charge of this group, although to what purpose its members were being put is beyond my ken.

What I did glean from my encounter with the useful idiots-who weren’t so useful in this case-was that they had a problem being photographed.  I discovered this after having a conversation with the Don Pedro fan seen in the picture above. The idea that anyone would express a natural curiosity in people wandering around Manhattan wearing t-shirts extolling an ideology that has murdered between 50 and 100 million people, and deprived tens of millions more of their liberty, never seemed to cross their minds, such as they are.

Patiently explaining my purpose merely seemed to heighten his anxiety, especially after I gave him my business card and told him the name of this website. This is a brief recapitulation of our exchange:

Communist: American Rattlesnake? I don’t know if I like that name.

Me: Why are you disturbed by the name?

Communist: Because most of the time…that rattlesnake thing is for reactionaries and fascists who wave the American flag!

Me: Like the Latino family standing next to the George Washington statue? 

Communist: That’s different! 

Me: How so? 

Communist: Mmm…

(Followed by a minute of so of silence and a stupefyingly dull facial expression.)

I can’t say that I expected a more welcome reaction from the dozen or so emissaries of Bob Avakian, the founder and head of a bizarre personality cult called the Revolutionary Communist Party.

If the Shepard Fairey-like silkscreened t-shirts bearing Avakian’s youthful visage aren’t enough to set off alarm bells, a brief excursion to the RCP’s website-which gives North Korean propaganda a run for its money in the weirdness department-should be enough to persuade you that these people are certifiably insane.

One of the recurring mantras of the Avakian supplicants is that the “real revolution” is imminent, and that you should get with it immediately.

Or entrale a la verdadera revolucion, if you prefer. In either case, it’s redolent more of a Marshall Applewhite-led Heaven’s Gate initiation than scientific socialism.

Nevertheless, the declamation of  revolutionary Communism must go on, even if mesh, pop-up hampers must take the place of wooden rostra and bullhorns. Evolution, my friends!

In addition to cyberspace, the proteges of Avakian also broadcast their incredibly delusional message through the cutting edge technology of dead trees, which bolsters the thriving industry of print journalism.

Alas, my preliminary investigation of these pioneering revolutionaries was abruptly curtailed when several of them demanded that I cease and desist taking pictures.  I can’t imagine what possible objections Communists could have to some harmless photography, but I took thge dispute in stride and calmly described-once again-the purpose of this website. After one Avakianik insisted that I give him copies of American Rattlesnake’s “newspaper,” I proceeded to explain the concept of a news website and why mass-producing a newspaper on pulp, a la Screw or The Nation, is an unnecessary and costly investment. He was not persuaded.

Therefore, I decided to make better use of my time by studying some of The Master’s doctrine, including what seems to be the handbook for all aspiring Revolutionary Communists, Basics.

A compendium of Avakian’s lectures and writings, Basics can also be used-it turns out-as a handy visual aid. In this case, as a giant mercator projection that focused on the depredations which global capitalism has inflicted upon various parts of the globe. One of the worst seems to be the manifestation of widespread famine in developing nations that have embraced the free market. Apparently, collectivism is the way to go in agriculture. Yes, a proven success.

The fact that there was widespread famine and civil strife in India during post-independence, socialist rule, and that that devastating hunger could be attributed in large measure to misguided agricultural policies, is an historical anomaly, I’m sure.

It’s impossible to attend any protest organized by the left and not be greeted by several dozen-or hundred, depending upon the turnout-t-shirts bearing the image of Ernesto “Che” Guevara Lynch, one of Ireland’s most embarrassing exports this side of Bono. Just multiply the image you see above twenty or so times and you’ll have an idea of what walking around Manhattan on May Day is like.

Less recognizable than Argentina’s Che Guevara, but still admired by Marxists of a certain age and disposition, is Africa’s Che Guevara, i.e. Thomas Sankara, the president of Burkina Faso for much of the 1980s. Another friend of Fidel, Sankara even had his version of the Young Pioneers.

In contrast to much of today’s brain-dead, multi-culti, post-modern left, Sankara was a strident opponent of such quaint cultural-religious practices as forced polygamy and female genital mutilation. However, he was in favor of armed Marxist revolution-having come to power in a coup d’état himself-and collective ownership of the means of production. Hence, his enduring popularity among a small segment of western-educated Marxists. Unlike another African ally of Che, whose successful revolution was effaced by subsequent events.

As obscure as the  former Communist president of Burkina Faso might seem, the Cuban Five-now the Cuban Four-are probably even less well known to those who aren’t aware of the extensive and capable intelligence network run by the Cuban government within the United States.

Although most Americans are oblivious to their existence, these spies serve as a potent rallying cry for the Castro regime, as well as a cause célèbre for the anti-American left. Some of you will remember the same type of literature and agitprop at previous demonstrations documented by this website.

Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised by the dedicated group of enthusiastic members of NY ICE I spotted from across the street.

Despite the balmy weather, these people are no sunshine patriots, but stalwart defenders of the Constitutional values upon which this country has thrived. They are in the streets, online, and on the phones pleading the case of ordinary Americans, year after year, regardless of the adverse political climate,  antipathy of the news media, or gamed lobbying structure of Capitol Hill.

Because they are aware of how much our government’s indulgence of illegal immigration has cost us in the past, and how much it will cost future generations of Americans if we don’t address this issue.

With real, substantive solutions, not the regurgitation of false rhetoric and the promise of deterrent measures which will never be implemented if and when the ultimate goal of immigration reform advocates, i.e. amnesty, is achieved.

If we’re going to look at adjusting our nation’s immigration policies, a good place to start would be with the words of our nation’s founding fathers, who remain a much better guidepost to wise decision-making than their dismal successors. If we really want to honor the labor of working Americans, we should start by rejecting plans that

One simple word which encapsulates the sum of the aspirations harbored by Iranians throughout the world, both those in exile and those living, and suffering, in the land of their birth. It was one of the demands invoked repeatedly throughout the pro-democracy demonstrations which took place last week at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. These protests were held against the backdrop of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s last speech before the United Nations General Assembly, evoking memories of the election he purloined in order to remain in power.

Although various factions within the Iranian freedom movement were present, the bulk of those in attendance came from the MEK, an organization led by the woman seen in the placard above, Maryam Rajavi.

The president of the People’s Mujahadeen of Iran-and wife of Massoud Rajavi, the leader of that group’s political arm, The National Council of Resistance in Iran-she controls what is arguably the most controversial, and undoubtedly the most personality-driven, group within the anti-IRI opposition movement which has taken root among the Iranian diaspora created by the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

The cloud surrounding the MEK exists for a number of reasons, one of the most prominent among them being its inclusion in a list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations created by the State Department, which includes such illustrious fraternal associations as Abu Sayyaf and Lashkar-e-Taiba. 

At first glance, it would appear that this designation is appropriate. After all, as this ABC News report about the recent removal of the MEK from proscribed terrorist organizations makes clear, it was responsible for the deaths of Americans-both civilian and military-abroad, much like northern California jihadi John Walker Lindh. It was given sanctuary for decades by Iraq-itself considered a state sponsor of terror until the removal of Saddam Hussein from power-much like the Palestinian Liberation Front, a terrorist group responsible for murdering American citizens in the most callous manner.

So if the terrorist designation is applied to any group which has the blood of Americans on its hands, then the State Department should not have even contemplated de-listing the MEK. However, if that is the policy, then what explanation is there for the federal government’s consistent policy of embracing, if not feting, PLO leaders? Men who  are directly implicated in the murder of American diplomats, and who represent an entity responsible  for the deaths of more Americans  any other terrorist organization in the contemporary era-and whose hands are stained with blood much fresher than that taken by the MKO-with the exceptions of Al Qaeda and Hezbollah. The PLO might even outrank the latter in body count, if we consider that its chief operations planner was once a protege of Yasser Arafat.

If the criteria for inclusion is militarization and/or criminal activity, then it’s hard to explain why the Irish Republican Army has never been designated an FTO. After all, the IRA Army Council didn’t formally renounce its armed campaign until 2005, which marked the year it finally decommissioned its supply of arms. What’s more, members of the IRA have engaged not only in murder and obstruction of justice within the past decade-as well as other notorious criminal activities-but shared their bomb-making expertise with the most prolific terrorist group in the Western Hemisphere.

So what explains the MEK’s designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the State Department? Although obviously a self-interested stance, I can’t help but agree with the MEK itself, which concludes that this decision was made in an attempt at currying favor with the Iranian regime. A regime whose presidency was held by the pseudo-reformist Mohammed Khatami, assiduously courted by the Clinton administration, at the time this list was formulated. As others have pointed out, this policy of engagement with the Islamic Republic of Iran has not returned much in the way of political or diplomatic dividends.

Even so, the MEK’s fiercest adversaries do pose some valid objections. The organization does have a very sordid past, a past which Kenneth Timmerman has extensively and eloquently limned over the years. And despite some exaggeration of the dangers it poses, there is an inexorably cultish quality to the organization created by Maryam and Massoud Rajavi, although it should be noted that there are numerous cults in this country which do not engage in terrorism. At least, as it is generally defined.

Another valid critique of the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq  is the assertion that it is not a genuinely grassroots opposition movement. Anyone who has observed an MEK rally firsthand can’t escape the impression that the astroturf accusations are not completely devoid of merit. The man above didn’t seem to have much interest in the internal political dynamics of Iran, much less the MEK, although the fact that he was at a rally with fans of the Redskins and Giants did speak to a rare intra-divisional amity this NFL season.

Even protestors with more substantive concerns-such as these Cameroonian men-did not seem particularly interested in the issues that animated others at this rally.

Notwithstanding the occasional references to “Iranian freedom,” most of their chants focused exclusively upon the injustice of Paul Biya’s lengthy dictatorship over the people of Cameroon, and the persecution their countrymen endure for opposing it.

Finally, the allegation that the MEK bought its way off of the State Department’s list of proscribed terrorist groups must be addressed. The fact that the former head of the Department of Homeland Security is willing to speak to crowd of MKO supporters, and urge other nations to facilitate the resettlement of MEK members now living in Camp Liberty, speaks to the efficacy of their lobbying efforts.

As does the bipartisan nature of the support they receive. Which runs the gamut from avid motorist Patrick Kennedy,

to former New Mexico governor-and Clinton fixer-Bill Richardson,

to the far more reputable, and decidedly conservative, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. Whatever motivates these public figures to support their cause-to a greater or lesser degree-it can’t be disputed that the  mobilization of the MEK within the halls of American power has played a significant role in their political rehabilitation.

That said, it strikes me as slightly hypocritical to bemoan the (legal) lobbying by an anti-IRI organization while ignoring the corresponding public relations campaign undertaken by friends of the mullahcracy. Even if you truly believe that the MEK is a monstrous organization, how much more bestial and inhumane is the regime it stands against?

Which isn’t to imply that the MEK is worthy of political support-either through taxpayer subsidies or individual donations-or a model which Iranian dissidents should emulate. Personally, I find the idea of it serving as “the government” of any future, post-Islamic Iranian republic fairly ludicrous. And of course, there already exist opposition activists with much compelling, forward-thinking platforms.

Nevertheless, the widespread efforts to demonize the MEK-for all its failures-seems to be profoundly misplaced. Even if we were to concede that this organization comprised the most detestable collection of rogues known to man, its continued existence is itself a byproduct of the brutal theocracy which has ruled Iran for the past three decades.

Their goals might be more ignoble than those of the Green Movement, and more incoherent than those of the constitutional monarchists and the left, but they exist within the context of opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran. A regime which rules largely-ironically enough-because of their past actions. However, the past is the past. To use the actions a group took decades ago, however heinous, as a justification for arbitrary political decisions, even those that might be enjoy widespread popularity, would be mistaken.

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.