Islam Without Irony, Part I: Robert Redeker
by tdaxp ~ September 30th, 2006
“Death Threats in Brussels, France (Robert Redeker),” by Paul Belien, Canada Free Press, 29 September 2006, http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/brussels092906.htm (hat-tip to The Corner, also at Atlas Shrugs, Brussels Journal, Catholic Answers, Common Sense Junction, Debido Shodo, Extreme Centre, Fausta’s blog, Freedom Fighter’s Journal, Gates of Vienna, It Shines For All, Jawa Report, Jihad Watch, Little Green Footballs, Media Watch Watch, Michelle Malkin, Middle Class Guy, Non Imprimatur, No Pasaran, Pajamas Media, Presque Rien Sur Presque Tout, QandO, Reinke Faces Life, Tail Rank, The Apostates, Vie de Malchance, Wood’s News & Views).
I’ve been threatened with eternal and worldly punishments by radical Muslims on this blog, though oddly not by Airline Security Screeners, Black Gangster Disciples, Catholics, Chinese, Fundementalist Christians, Greeks, Hobos, Hong Kongese, Italians, Japanese, Jews, public intellectuals, Republicans, Senators, Senior Citizens, South Dakotans, or any of the other groups I have mocked, exploited, blah blah blah. It’s hard to imagine that many Muslims are without a certain sense of irony, of humor, of fun, or non-violence, in a way that TSA officials, government bureaucrats, street thugs, and others are not.
Thus, this is hilarious:
Meanwhile in France, a philosophy teacher is under police protection after receiving death threats over an op-ed article [French text here] which he wrote in a national newspaper. In the article, which was published in the conservative daily Le Figaro of September 19th, Robert Redeker accused Islam of “exalting violence.” Mr Redeker has not attended classes at his school near Toulouse since the article was published. Pierre Rousselin, the editor in chief of Le Figaro, apologized on Al-jazeera for the publication of the article. A number of Islamic countries, including Egypt, banned Le Figaro following the publication of Redeker’s piece. Mr Rousselin said the publication of the op-ed was a mistake. He said the article did not express the paper’s opinion. The article is no longer available on the Figaro website.
Mr Redeker has written a letter to his friend, the philosopher André Glucksmann, describing his ordeal [French text here]:
“I am now in a catastrophic personal situation. Several death threats have been sent to me, and I have been sentenced to death by organizations of the al-Qaeda movement. [...] On the websites condemning me to death there is a map showing how to get to my house to kill me, they have my photo, the places where I work, the telephone numbers, and the death fatwa. [...] There is no safe place for me, I have to beg, two evenings here, two evenings there. [...] I am under the constant protection of the police. I must cancel all scheduled conferences. And the authorities urge me to keep moving. [...] All costs are at my own expense, including those of rents a month or two ahead, the costs of moving twice, legal expenses, etc.
Islam is a religion optimized for anarchy. It may well be the solution for many trapped in the Gap, but in its natural evangelical form it is not a religion compatible with Westernism, openness, or the Core. That is why the Long Global War against Terrorism is being fought for Islam.
[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2 008/06/19/the-foreign-polic...
September 30th, 2006 at 12:00 am
No muslim ever called me nigger, so I have nothing against them.
September 30th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Wolfsbane,
Could you comment on the Muslim POV on the history of Islam? [1] I would appreciate your input.
I do not want to live in a majority-Muslim country, or any other state in the brutal, nasty, poor, and solitary non-integrating Gap. [2] (There are no majority-Muslim states that are not in the Gap, so the question of living there is moot.)
[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/09/23/jesusism-paulism-part-v-the-people-of-the-book.html
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/05/18/redefining-the-gap-11-results.html
September 30th, 2006 at 12:00 am
>What's your point?
The failure of your posts to fully describe the Muslim point of view, of which you are not. That is indeed a weakness in your arguments versus Islam, because you cannot fully put yourself in their shoes.
>PuppyBane is trying to be clever lefty and make what he no doubt believes is a subtle and pround reference linking the current war and the vietnam war.
Your use of a juvenile put-down is noted. Along with the need to bracket “left”,”right”, etc. How “American” and tunnelled vision, but I will not hold that against you for following the precepts of what is a fad.
I think both of you gentlemen need to live in a Muslim country to truly know what you are talking about.
September 30th, 2006 at 12:00 am
What's your point?
September 30th, 2006 at 12:00 am
PuppyBane is trying to be clever lefty and make what he no doubt believes is a subtle and pround reference linking the current war and the vietnam war.
September 30th, 2006 at 12:00 am
I wish I could type and proof better - “profound” was the word I was going for.
September 30th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Better be careful there, Purpleslog — Wolfsbane and you both share an interest in 1970s-era technological utopianism!
http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/09/26/video-on-1970s-era-technology-initiatives.html#c1151159
September 30th, 2006 at 12:00 am
“think both of you gentlemen need to live in a Muslim country to truly know what you are talking about.”
I like my neck on my head, thank you very much.
September 30th, 2006 at 12:00 am
CG - I prefer my /head/ on my neck, but the point's taken
September 30th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Okay, that's a sign of way too reading
September 30th, 2006 at 12:00 am
“Way too reading” — have you decided to communicate in “social Englishes,” or are you merely having a stroke, lol!
October 3rd, 2006 at 12:00 am
“both of you gentlemen need to live in a Muslim country”
I have no desire to - I would not make make a good dhimmi.
Also, I have known enough Muslims first hand - and their fantasy worlds of ideology and history - thank you.
October 3rd, 2006 at 12:00 am
I have Turkish, Iranian, and Chinese Muslims who are very close to me.
However, merely saying one side doesn't fit all [1] [2] misses the point.
Of course not all Muslims are the same. So what? What matters is not the variation in populations, but the degree of violence among extremists. There are Christian extremists and Jewish extremists. We simply do not see the same amount of violence out of them as from Muslim extremists.
[1] http://www.cominganarchy.com/archives/2006/10/02/one-size-does-not-fit-all/
[2] http://fdnf.typepad.com/live_from_the_fdnf/2006/09/the_dark_view_o.html
January 2nd, 2007 at 12:00 am
While the Christians haven't threatened you, they do threaten. I'd suggest Mark Juergensmeyer's Terror in the Mind of God…
January 2nd, 2007 at 12:00 am
The question is not whether some people in this group or that group threaten — a certain fraction of the population may just be violent [1] — but we can say that some groups threaten more than others.
How would you compare, say, the number of International Islamic terrorist groups to the number of international terrorist groups not associated with Islam?
For that matter, how would you compare the number of Muslim insurgencies against non-Muslim governments with the reverse?
[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/12/20/the-wary-guerrilla-part-iii-terrorism.html
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/12/24/the-wary-guerrilla-part-vi-absolute-guerrilla.html