The perfect propaganda storm gathers

In Geneva, Switzerland next April, the UN will convene yet another conference "against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance" ("Durban II"), whose focus is going to be on "Islamophobia" -- an event for which former UN Special Rapporteur "on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance" Doudou Diène spent much of his tenure assiduously laying the intellectual and rhetorical groundwork. As I noted on June 20, were this event to occur three months after the inauguration of Barack Obama and a lopsidedly Democratic Congress, it could create a "perfect storm" of conditions for repression of the Counterjihad through "hate speech" legislation.

Such a confluence of conditions would be greatly excerbated were another anti-"Islamophobia" conference, proposed by the Malaysian government at the behest of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, to be held in the United States as stipulated by OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu. Ihsanoglu, according to Malaysian Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim, "said the United States was chosen as the venue for the convention because of the polemic on Islam in that country as well as the wide media coverage it would get."

The clear intention of this is to maintain the operational tempo of the jihad in the propaganda sphere by amplifying "Durban II's" call for "hate speech" legislation criminalizing "Islamophobia." That this would fall on receptive ears in an Obama administration is shown by several remarks Barack Obama has made during the course of his campaign:

A certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia. There’s a reason why hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year. If you have people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up, it’s not surprising that would happen.

-- Remarks to a gathering of donors at the Westin Hotel, Palm Beach, Florida, May 22, 2008

There is a consequence to the demagoguery [over immigration]--hate crimes against Latinos have gone way up over the last year. We've also seen over the last several months this epidemic of nooses being hung all across the country since the events down in Jena, Louisiana. ... So, what can we do to strengthen the enforcement of hate crimes legislation? It is something that I will prioritize as president but I don't want to have to wait until I am.

-- Remarks at the Iowa Brown and Black Presidential Forum, Des Moines, Iowa, Dec. 1, 2007

From the day I take office as President, America will have a Justice Department that is truly dedicated to the work it began in the days after Little Rock. I will rid the department of ideologues and political cronies, and for the first time in eight years, the Civil Rights Division will actually be staffed with civil rights lawyers who prosecute civil rights violations, and employment discrimination, and hate crimes.

-- Speech at Howard University, Washington, D.C., Sept. 28, 2007

In order to countervail the malign effects of "Durban II" and the OIC conference, an educational campaign similar to the "Islamofascism Awareness Week" programs put on by the David Horowitz Freedom Center should be launched, culiminating in a series of teach-ins, demonstrations and media events during and in close proximity to the OIC's propagandafest. I urge the Horowitz Center to consider such a campaign, which would redound greatly to its credit -- and to the survival of our liberties.

A grim moment of candor

In a speech at Columbia University on Sept. 18, Organization of the Islamic Conference Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu had this to say:

The Muslim Ummah, means the 'community of the faithful'. It is a unique bond that has no similar example under any other political or religious system in the world. It is a belonging to ideals which bring Muslims together in an eternal brotherhood lock which transcends all other consideration of allegiance or loyalties or barriers of nationhood, ethnicity, geography or language.

Hence, according to one of the senior representatives of the Muslim world, it would seem that there is no such thing as a "Muslim American" or an "American Muslim," the two categories being mutually exclusive. This is implicitly recognized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the compound modifier in whose name is used advisedly. (See also Qur'an 48:29, which mandates that Muslims be "hard against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves.")

Ihsanoglu also assured his audience that:

Though the OIC is not a religious organization, we feel compelled on many occasions to clarify that Islam is the religion of moderation and compassion, a religion that celebrates diversity, pluralism, and recognition of the other.

Recognition indeed: as a crawling, cringing subordinate, as per Qur'an 9:29 and its exegesis by Ibn Kathir, who pointed out that a Muslim-conquered person is “disgraced, humiliated, and belittled. Therefore, Muslims are not allowed to honor the people of Dhimmah or elevate them above Muslims, for they are miserable, disgraced, and humiliated."

Ihsanolu went on to conflate criticism of Islam with "racial hatred," then boast, in the next breath, of considerable progress in our subordination:

A major bone of contention with the proponents of Islamophobia is the question of freedom of expression. Although all agree that any freedom is always linked to responsibility, such as respecting human rights, and avoiding any form of incitement to hatred on the basis of race or religious belief, we find that some circles tend to ignore this basic universal and moral value and accuse Muslim victims of this racial hatred, who are defending their human rights, nevertheless, of trying to stifle freedom of expression.

The collective efforts of the OIC and the member states have made an impact on the international community and have contributed towards raising global awareness of the dangerous implications of the phenomenon. Political leaders and opinion makers including academics and civil society leaders of the western world have now started to speak out against Islamophobia. ... The United States Government also showed its sensitivity to the concerns of the OIC by its decision to avoid anti Islamic terminology in their official memos and correspondences.

In the days after the Muslim-orchestrated atrocity of 9/11, the president of the United States declared that the jihadist attackers "hate our freedoms ... our freedom of speech," that they "kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life," and that in resisting them "we will not falter, and we will not fail." How terribly, how dreadfully, how shamefully hollow these words now sound, in light of Ihsanoglu's braggadoccio.

(Hat tip: Baron Bodissey at Gates of Vienna.)

Doudou done

On August 1, Doudou Diène was replaced by Githu Muigai of Kenya (shown at right) as UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. Muigai, a Nairobi attorney and a graduate of the Columbia University School of Law, appears at first glance to be carrying forward Diene's campaign against "defamation of religion," which, as I have noted, is a threat to the rights of those of us with the temerity to analyze, criticize, expose and make mock of the inimical aspects of Islam's scripture, traditions, history, and contemporary practice. However, this report describes a setback for the Organization of the Islamic Conference in the UN Human Rights Council in which he appears to have had a hand.

Muigai is managing/lead partner of Mohammed Muigai Advocates in Nairobi. His C.V. may be seen here. ("Mohammed Muigai" is not Muigai's name but the firm's, another senior partner bearing the name of Mohammed Nyaoga.) The firm's address may be found here. UN radio has a brief report on a speech by Muigai here.

With the UN's follow-up conference to the notorious 2001 Durban conference on racism and xenophobia (which turned into an anti-Semitic saturnalia) fast approaching, it is very much to be hoped that Muigai will bring a less doctrinaire attitude to his new position than his predecessor showed.

Securing whom, from what?

At FrontPage this morning, the indefatigable Robert Spencer comments on a New York Daily News report that Gotham's police department is beefing up security around Muslim mosques during the upcoming Islamic holy month of Ramadan. After noting the preponderant influence of the Saudi Arabian Wahhabi strain of Islam over American mosques and the malign propaganda exuded by them, Spencer points up the irony of the fact that NYPD's effort is not directed at protecting New Yorkers from their baleful activities but rather at protecting the mosques themselves. "The mosques are well protected," he observes, "but how well protected are the potential victims of the jihadists who may be inside those mosques?"

That is a damn good question, in view of the traditional Muslim view that Ramadan is a time of victory and conquest. Nor is New York the only place where infidel tax dollars are being spent on Muslim security. Last year the Council on American-Islamic Relations (note the compound modifier denoting two separate and distinct entities: America and the Umma al-Islamiya) posted an "action alert" calling upon "American mosques and other Islamic institutions" to apply for Department of Homeland Security grants "to receive training and to purchase equipment such as video cameras, alarm systems and other security enhancements," with an eye toward "target-hardening." This, through a $24 million DHS program intended to protect "organizations who are deemed high-risk for a potential international terrorist attack."

American taxpayers may be forgiven for wondering which "international terrorists" are the least bit likely to attack Muslim mosques in the U.S. -- and why, if said "targets" are in need of "hardening," they have to pay for it instead of the cash-flush Saudis whose petroboodle built the things in the first place.