A True Fight For Freedom

"The Western mind-set—that if we respect them, they’re going to respect us, that if we indulge and appease and condone and so on, the problem will go away—is delusional. The problem is not going to go away. Confront it, or it’s only going to get bigger"

-former Muslim ,Ayaan Hirsi Ali, from "Reason Magazine", speaking about her former faith

The week of October 16th-22nd is slated to be "Islamo-Fasciscm Awarness Week". I fully support this action and will be participating if possible. I encourage anyone who reads this, regardless of you political tendencies to do likewise

There is one beautiful thing of not aligning yourself with any specific political agenda, and that is the kind of company you get to keep.

I have friends and acquaintances of people of all stripes, none of whom share all of my particular points of view on everything, nor would I aspire to find myself in the midst of people who all believed the same thing, spoke the same way, thought in the same fashion. I have a man whom I consider a mentor of sorts, who is a strong Catholic, a literary inspiration who is devout atheist, and the person whom I speak to the most happens to be a devout protestant with tendencies towards things of the supernatural. I have an Uncle who, with all of his libertarian ideals, likes to chat with me for hours as we figure out the problems of the world and solve them in the span of an evening.

Until recently, I worked with a Muslim woman who shared my sarcastic sense of humor and enjoyed her company even when she was catching me off guard with her quick New York City wit, that usually got the best of me. We shared the fact that neither one of us drinks alcohol, and when I offered to go get her a BLT she smiled and rolled her eyes. She knew it was a joke and could give just as good as she got.

It is all good and a refreshing change from the generic, rehearsed, plagiarized, thoughts and emotion that substituted for relationships in MOVE.

I respect them and they respect me, not for my views on what happens or doesn’t happen after we die, but for who they are to me, and likewise

It also comes in handy when you find a particular cause for which to lend your name and whatever tiny bit of influence you may have. Most conservatives would throw up their hands in indignation at the thought of keeping company with an anti-death penalty, anti-religious, pro-gay, pro-choice, non Bushite, such as myself (although I hear the last one is now fashionable even amongst conservatives).

However, when it comes to fighting authoritarianism, a struggle which I take a personal stake in, I have declared myself on the side of those who are in the struggle against those who would attempt, and I say attempt, because I think their failure is hard-wired into their backwards ideology, to drag the world back to the fourth century. MOVE was a cult that claimed it wanted to drag the world back to a mythical time before there was such a thing as time. A utopia of naturalism, devoid of thought, ideas. It was, and is rubbish together from various philosphical fads of the late 1960's.

Islam, far more capable, organized, and demonstrably ruthless, places my occasional rants against MOVE in their proper context of complete and almost total pointlessness. The faith originated by a man with a hunger for young girls, blood, power, and complete domination, has proven that all faiths are not created equal and that some have within them, the blue-prints for near limitless violence.

And like MOVE, the first and primary victims are those within Islam’s immediate orbit. It is not you and I who are immediately victimized by young boys whose education goes only as far as being able to recite the Koran and fire a Kalashnikov. From my experience with MOVE, I learned that hatred is not innate. It must be taught. The natural curiosity that makes children so wonderful must be stifled if extremism is to thrive. Like MOVE, in Islam, logic is an enemy and truth is a menace.

Consider an excerpt from a recent report by Middle East Media Research Initiative (MEMRI)

"The 60th issue of Al-Fateh features a story about Sa'id Hassan Hutari from Qalqilya, who carried out the June 2001 suicide bombing at a disco near the Dolphinarium in Tel Aviv, killing 21 people, mostly teens. The magazine presents Hutari's last message, in which he says: "I shall turn my body into pieces and bombs that will pursue the sons of Zion, blow them up, and burn the remains [of their bodies]." He then addresses his parents, telling them not to weep over his death, saying, "There is nothing greater than to give one's soul for the sake of Allah on Palestinian soil. Mother, utter cries of joy; Father and brothers, hand out sweets. Your son is awaiting his betrothal to the Virgins of Paradise."

Al-Fateh, like the much publicized Jew-hating Mickey Mouse look-alike of a Paliestinian TV show is directed towards children.

What struck me as compelling about this week of education about the issue of "Islamic Fascism" is not the name, as I am not even so much fond of the term, as I would argue it an inaccurate description of what is being faced. But what moved me was the focus of the event being that of the "first" victims of Islamic extremism, Muslims themselves, particularly the most vulnerable and weak amongst them, women and children.

I personally find it disgraceful that many of my comrades on the left, instead of finding the value within this call to end senseless religiously inspired brutality, are doing what they can to silence those who are acting in a capacity of speaking up for those who cannot.

This is not the "jingoistic", "racist", exhortation to war, as it’s critics have contended. Far from "Islamamophobic", the originators of this week of activism are asking people to be more educated, to not presume things about your brown skinned neighbor who may be a Sikh or a Hindu, both of whom have long been victims of Islamic terror. This week is not to instill terror or hatred, but seeks to educate. Those veiled women you see are victims of centuries of tyranny that is as contemptible as it is obsolete.

It is a fact that jihadists can be blue eyed and blonde haired and that there are people like my friend from Lebanon who is the antithesis of anything related to terror whose complexion is a bit darker than that of Bin-Laden.

I learned in MOVE the veritable power of the stereotype. The name MOVE conjures up images of dread-locked blacks, stinking of garlic, with a bullhorn massacring the English language while planning to massacre some cops. But in actuality, the typical MOVE adherent today is white, of a middle class or upper middle class background. Many keep respectable employment and wear casual clothes. They could be a co-worker of yours and you would never know it. I worked for years in and around Philadelphia, and nobody had a clue. Prejudice is your enemy. Knowledge is your weapon.

The week against Islamo-Fascism is just as much a week against bigotry, if it were otherwise, I would have no part in it. Once you realize that the world of Islam is far more complex than the west perceives it to be. Many of our best allies are living in the Muslim world. Like Soviet dissidents, they quietly, but persistently, are leading small revolts against the world that surrounds them. Their heroism in the face of pure terror is motivating and nearly unbelievable considering the torment they and their families face if caught. We don’t know their names. If we did, they wouldn’t be alive. But they are there and they are on the front lines against Islamic extremism, and they are dying for it, and my leftist friends could care less.

It is much easier to throw a pie at Anne Coulter than it is to support the women sentenced to death by stoning in Iran for some offense against the Theocracy whose representative was recently met with applause by students at Columbia University.

The crass rhetorical jabs that may come my way by embracing this week of activism is a small price to pay to call attention to the fact that Iran does not have homosexuals (he left out the part about Iran's policy designed to "liquidate" them", that in Islam the idea of "equal" rights for women is treated as apostasy and may cost you much just for discussing it, not to speak of espousing it.

It is hard for many of us to conceptualize what it is like to live in authoritarian system. I got a very tiny taste of what such a society is like. And it was enough for me to be forever in opposition to it and all of it that it brings along with it.

I suffer under no illusion that America is a perfect, wonderful, place, but it is the place that gives me the right to say that, and it, for all of it’s flaws is worth fighting for.

Take a moment during the week of October 16th-22th and educate yourself and friends and family about an issue that so many of us don’t know enough about. Go get a Koran from the library, show up at a Mosque on a Friday and see what your local believers in the "religion of peace" are being taught.

I implore you to do something. Anything. As the enemy may be much closer than you think.

As for me, as I have people close to me whom I care deeply about who live a life of freedom, so to is there someone whom I care deeply that is trapped under the spell of Islam. It is a tragedy compounded by the reality that this person ought to know better.

The week of Oct 16th-22nd I will be thinking of this person and hoping and praying in my own secular way that they will wake up and embrace freedom. The freedom that so many in Islamic terror states have no chance to embrace.