An eight-year-old girl named Ruqaya, from a Muslim family, gave a pro-jihad speech yesterday in Sydney. Her words sound stilted and rehearsed, but still, how could anyone let their young daughter go onstage and advocate jihad? Brainwashing, of course.
In the video, though, the Aussie cops seem overly eager to grab up the demonstrators. Also, since yesterday I’ve heard that the authorities have visited the family of the boy who held up the “Behead those who insult the prophet” sign, and have determined that things are okay.
Ruqaya delivered her speech to an audience of 600 at a conference called Muslims Rise, hosted by an Islamic group called Hizb ut-Tahrir. It was held in Bankstown in Sydney’s west on Sunday.
Muslims Rise advocates the restoration of the Islamic caliphate – a global government for all muslims, operating under strict sharia law.
Ruqaya was one of nine speakers in a considerable line-up, which included a controversial keynote from Taji Mustafa, described by the Opposition as a “hate preacher”.
“My dear brothers and sisters in Islam, as the world gathers against the believers in Syria … seeking to hijack our sincere and blessed uprisings, children in Sydney would like to send their message of hope and support to the Muslims of (Syria), especially to the children and mothers,” Ruqaya said in her speech.
“These uprisings have demonstrated that this umma (global Muslim community) is alive and well, her love is for jihad, she is unshackled herself from the fear which she held, and she yearns to once again live under the banner of (the Islamic state).
“Children as young as myself can be seen on the streets joining the uprisings, risking their lives to bring food, water and medicine to their wounded family members, some of them never returning to their mothers … Nobody is too young,” she said.
Oy vey.
Unfortunately, many American fundamentalist Christians use their children in similar ways — perhaps not advocating jihad, but attacking any who disagree with their narrow view.
Actually they are advocating xtian jihad.
In the documentary “Jesus Camp”, Becky Fischer, the director of Kids in Ministry International says:
You go into Palestine … and they’re taking their kids to camps like we take our kids to Bible camps, and they’re putting hand grenades in their hands, and they’re teaching them how to put on bomb belts. They’re teaching them how to use rifles. They’re teaching them how to use machine guns. It’s no wonder with that kind of intense training and discipling that those young people are ready to kill themselves for the cause of Islam.
and:
I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam
and just in case anyone was not clear on her intentions:
I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the gospel.
As much as I can’t stand the right wing Christian nut jobs in our country, too many, like you, are overly anxious to equate them with the nut job Muslims who are actually committing violence. Our “American Taliban” is scary and I don’t like them, but they aren’t rioting and their numbers as a percentage of the American people pale in comparison with the percentage of people in Libya and Egypt and other Arab countries who want to live under Shria law and support the violence and even support the murder of our Ambassador over a movie. We still have a Bill of Rights and Freedom of Religion – important ideals that are foreign and horrifying to many Arab Muslims. And people from all over the world read these posts. What must they think when they hear that over half of our population considers themselves Christian and then read that people like Becky Fischer admire Palestinian training of children with weapons and think kids should be ready to lay down their lives for Christ. Yes, people like Becky exist and she is free to say what she wants, but we are at least a few steps away from any of our children being trained to use machine guns and hand grenades for Christ (I’m sure you can find exceptions that are meant to prove me wrong). There are no riots here over showing “The Life of Brian” and I have yet to be threatened with any violence for my atheism. The difference between the U.S. and Libya, Egypt, Afghanistan, Iran and other similar places is like night and day and yet the first thing that comes to some peoples minds is how we are just as bad. We are not. We do have problems with the religious right. They are getting away with too much, particularly in their schools. The rhetoric from some Christian politicians and preachers is vitriolic and dangerous. We have to be vigilant and we have a tough fight ahead of us to maintain the separation of church and state, but people like Becky Fischer are the exception, not the rule and we aren’t about to erupt in Christian riots because we won’t post the ten commandments in courthouses or somebody drew a buffoonish cartoon of Christ.
Larry, I agree with everything you say, except (there’s always an except) the “overly anxious” part.
I saw the documentary a few years ago and found it quite compelling and I think the film achieved it’s claim that it “doesn’t come with any prepackaged point of view” and tries to be “an honest and impartial depiction of one faction of the evangelical Christian community”.
Well you are wrong.
I’ve been getting death threats from fundie xians for 12 years now. They’ve murdered 8 of my colleagues and wounded about 200.
Very routine. A lot of scientists get them. We take steps to protect ourselves which is also routine. One climatology group has been moved to a secure, unknown location.
It’s true that US fundies are less violent than Moslems. There are also 30 times more and they are over here where I live, not over there. It really only takes on bullet to the head to ruin your whole day.
You are speaking from pure ignorance. Tick off the forced birthers or creationists, get a few dozen death threats, take anti-terrorism training, wonder for a few years if and when you are going to be shot or bombed, and then let us know all about those “less violent” US xians.
PS I long ago lost track of how many death threats I’ve gotten. But they’ve all been from xians. I’ve been critical of Moslems from time to time as well. The number of death threats from Moslems is …..ZERO!
Are you getting death threats because of what you write (internet or elsewhere) — or are they because of your specific line of work?
(I’m not challenging you; I’m concerned.)
Both. Mostly it is because I’ve been vocal against them for a long time, decades. The forced birthers/female slavers are the worst.
I don’t worry about it much anymore.
1. I haven’t had an internet presence under my own name since late in the last century. I have no intention of ever doing so again.
This doesn’t stop them but it slows them way down. I’ve had my computer systems hacked twice to get my real name. Those are the ones to watch out for, they are serious. The FBI arrested two of them once, we got the ID of the other group from their spyware.
2. The death threats come and go. Lately they’ve dropped off. The FBI has started watching them closely and arresting them often. Death threats are a felony. It started after Jared Loughner shot Gabbrielle Giffords and killed a bunch more. Shooting politicians, who often get death threats too, really focused them on this.
3. We take precautions. I read an interview with another scientist who detailed what they do. Varying your schedule and route to work, checking under the car for bombs every morning, and so on. He said, he’s being doing it for so long, it seems normal.
I see. Take care.
Okay. Now I’m depressed.
Two things.
First, and this is idle curiosity, so feel free to ignore: what is it you’re doing that’s got the godbots so crazed? I’d guess embryonic stem cell research, but there’re plenty of other candidates.
Second…I think your story needs to get out. May I suggest? Approach a journalist you admire at one of the larger institutions and see if you can get him or her to publish something (with you, obviously, as a confidential source). Maybe make the approach through one of the atheist-friendly advocacy organizations, such as Citizens United or the ACLU.
Even if your story has already been published, now’s probably a good time to get it out there again, perhaps either as a follow-up or with some other organization.
b&
Ben, I’m not going there.
I’ll just add that this isn’t that unusual. A lot of scientists have gotten it a lot worse than me.
They almost always drop out of sight as much as possible. When you have a family and kids at home, it’s probably the most responsible thing to do. The kids didn’t sign up for this sort of insanity.
I probably should have done that myself. It might yet happen.
Fair enough. But, if it’s concerns for privacy and / or security that make you reluctant…well, reputable journalists have a long history of protecting their sources.
I think, for example, you could trust Faye Flam of the Philadelphia Inquirer both to keep your identity secret and to fairly and honestly report on the facts, and that she’d probably be quite interested in the story.
b&
The situation is just a little bit different in Canada to put it mildly.
I’ve been getting death threats from fundie xians for 12 years now. They’ve murdered 8 of my colleagues and wounded about 200. Very routine. A lot of scientists get them. We take steps to protect ourselves which is also routine. One climatology group has been moved to a secure, unknown location.
Sounds highly implausible. Where may I find information from a reputable source about these “routine” death threats and acts of violence by fundamentalist Christians against…climatologists?
Gary, just google it. Your total ignorance isn’t my problem.
Here is a list of fundie xian attacks against evolutionary biologists. This is an old post and a link provides documentation. One guy was knifed to death. Two scientists were beaten up. Many have been fired. This list isn’t even up to date or comprehensive.
FWIW, fundie xians can and occasionally are violent. This vandalism in Florida is just more xian terrorism.
Below is an old list of their other victims. It is long and getting longer all the time.
The real story is the persecution of scientists by Fundie Xian Death cultists, who have fired, harassed, beaten up, and killed evolutionary biologists and their supporters whenever they can.
http://www.sunclipse.org/?p=626 [link goes to Blake Stacey’s blog which has a must read essay with documentation of the cases below.]
Posting the list of who is really being beaten up, threatened, fired, attempted to be fired, and killed. Not surprisingly, it is scientists and science supporters by Death Cultists.
If anyone has more info add it. Also feel free to borrow or steal the list.
I thought I’d post all the firings of professors and state officials for teaching or accepting evolution.
2 professors fired, Bitterman (SW CC Iowa) and Bolyanatz (Wheaton)
1 persecuted unmercifully Richard Colling (Olivet) Now resigned under pressure.
1 persecuted unmercifully for 4 years Van Till (Calvin)
1 attempted firing Murphy (Fuller Theological by Phillip Johnson IDist)
1 successful death threats, assaults harrasment Gwen Pearson (UT Permian)
1 state official fired Chris Comer (Texas)
1 assault, fired from dept. Chair Paul Mirecki (U. of Kansas)
1 killed, Rudi Boa, Biomedical Student (Scotland)
1 fired Brucke Waltke noted biblical scholar
Biology Department fired, La Sierra SDA University
1 attempted persecution Richard Dawkins by the Oklahoma state legislature
Vandalism Florida Museum of Natural History
Death Threats Eric Pianka UT Austin and the Texas
Academy of Science engineered by a hostile, bizarre IDist named Bill Dembski
Death Threats Michael Korn, fugitive from justice, towards the UC Boulder biology department and miscellaneous evolutionary biologists.
Death Threats Judge Jones Dover trial. He was under federal marshall protection for a while
Up to 16 with little effort. Probably there are more. I turned up a new one with a simple internet search. Haven’t even gotten to the secondary science school teachers.
And the Liars of Expelled, the movie have the nerve to scream persecution. On body counts the creos are way ahead.
These days, fundie xian is synonymous with liar, ignorant, stupid, and sometimes killer.
Something that leapt out at me from the article you linked to was Luke 19:27 being used as part of a death threat.
But, no apparently, I’m the one who doesn’t understand what that verse means, and nobody ever really thinks that Jesus said to kill all non-Christians.
Thanks for staying the course, and may Fortune stop frowning upon you.
b&
Gary, just google it. Your total ignorance isn’t my problem.
It’s not my job to substantiate your assertions. That’s your job. I’m still waiting for you to substantiate your claim of “routine” death threats and acts of violence by fundamentalist Christians against climatologists. You haven’t presented evidence of even a single such threat or attack.
Most of the claims on your list refer to incidents of firing. That’s considerably less serious than death threats. I don’t see any evidence for the conclusion that any of the incidents you list, assuming they actually occurred at all, were the result of religiously-motivated actions by fundamentalist Christians. You apparently expect people to believe unsubstantiated accusations simply because someone made them on a blog.
We know from public records that there have been acts of religiously-motivated violence by American fundamentalist Christians, including murder, against various people, mostly people involved in abortion. And we know that in various places fundamentalists are trying to prevent the teaching of evolution and promote the teaching of creationism. It seems plausible that this sometimes involves trying to get teachers and others fired from their jobs.
But I see no evidence of widespread or routine cases of death threats or assaults on “scientists” by fundamentalists. You seem to be engaging in absurd hyperbole.
It took me 10 seconds on google to get this.
Most of these threats never make it to the mass media. It just encourages the others and there are a lot of them anyway.
BTW, this is my last post on this. It’s off topic and it’s Jerry Coyne’s blog. Welcome to the murky world of fundie xian terrorism. It’s been a problem in the USA for decades.
One more for the road.
One more for the road.
Which is also unsubstantiated and contains no mention of “fundie xians” anyway.
If anyone is threating climate scientists, it’s likely to be people with some kind of vested financial interest in opposing climate science, not “fundie xians” acting from religious motives.
I’m still looking for the story about the eight scientists that were murdered. I found it hard to believe that there was a rash of scientist murders going on in the U.S. and none of us, people who read about science, had heard about it, but having been wrong before, I hesitated to challenge you on your “facts”. So thank you, Gary W, for asking followup questions I should have asked. But when Gary asked you, Raven, for more information you avoided that part of your story and apparently not content with only calling me ignorant, you called him ignorant as well. And you called him that because he didn’t answer a question he asked you.
I’m just a guy who finds the information Jerry shares absolutely fascinating and entertaining. I try to participate by making an occasional comment with the idea that the more people who do so, the more fun and interesting the discussion becomes. I am not here to be called names by a guy who makes statements he won’t or can’t back up.
Yep – it’s not just Phelp’s bunch who put 6-year-olds out there to do horrible things like hold up signs with “God Hates Fags”. The christians in Australia do the same sort of thing. Kids have been used as pawns to whine about how society can’t allow homosexuals to marry because that would make baby Jesus cry. More recently kids have been used to complain about how allowing a mosque to be built in a certain area will destroy the community’s ‘christian values’ (I think the phrase means bigotry and hatred). Kids are great – you can get ’em to do anything and religions aren’t too shy to abuse their innocence and turn them into vile beasts. Whenever a christian whines to me about islam I say “what are you complaining about? Christianity is just as bad.”
Something feels “not right” about all of this, the way it’s springing up in so many unrelated parts of the globe, all at the same time. It’s as if somebody is stoking the flames, with some specific goal of setting off something bigger.
I really, really, really hope I’m just being paranoid.
b&
I recent article I read pointed out that when Islam was in a state of cultural ascendancy in Eastern Europe insults to the “prophet” were generally let go- they just didn’t care much. Islam is now in a stated of severe cultural decline. Now they’re sweating the small stuff and its really just looking for a pretext.
Yes, you’re paranoid – there is nothing well-organized (though in some places there is some loose organization to push such an agenda). However there is definitely a mass hysteria here. Muslim communities differ so much from eachother just as christian communities do, and yet they all identify as muslim just as christians identify as christians even though one christian sect would normally denounce another christian sect as not being christian. It is a phenomenon similar to the one in which christians and muslims gang up on those evil atheists because both groups, although inimical to eachother, relate themselves under the banner of religion.
The initial attack on the embassy a week ago was a well-planned paramilitary operation.
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/49027233#49027233
An organization that can pull off that sort of thing is also capable of fomenting unrest in diverse locations. I haven’t heard anything directly tying them all together…but, as I wrote, something doesn’t feel right.
b&
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you. “ Joseph Heller , Catch-22
I can’t resist adding a linguistic note here–I do think this is child abuse, and I don’t think the meaning here was entirely innocent, but the west tends to get overly worked up about the word “jihad.” It can mean struggle in general, and, depending on context, can be completely non-violent. It just so happens English has a word with a similar semantic range–crusade. One can be on a “crusade for education,” for instance, and that would have nothing to do with the military conquest of Jerusalem. I think the little girl’s speech is intentionally playing on that ambiguity. That being said–yeah. Religion seems especially scary right now.
German also has a word with a similar range of senses, i.e. Kampf.
Godwin!
“The commissioner says officers were tipped off beforehand by concerned Muslims who saw the text messages used to rally protesters.”
So, that’s good. Why they stay religious is both beyond me and another debate altogether.
These people are not Australians and will never aspire to be.
You don’t know any of that.
Oh, it’s the old “This is Un(insert nationality here)” trope. Australia has plenty of bigots who don’t want any colored folk, mohammedans or what-nots in the country.
About one year ago, I was informed by a self-described well-informed commenter on a blog, that moderate Islam was making great strides as integration into more secular societies was progressing.
This person gave a few examples of countries where moderate to liberal Islam was winning the debate. The recent news in these countries is that conservative to radical Islam is now poised to dominate in these very same countries.
This video shows a girl from Australia. I have read of neighborhoods in modern secular European countries where it is dangerous for non Muslims to walk the sidewalks.
While their numbers go up and down over the years, Pew surveys indicate that compared to the other Abrahamic religions, the percentage of radical elements in many Muslim countries and communities is much higher.
Islamism seems to be winning. Integration appears to be losing. Islam is slowly, but surely it seems, moving rightward. This, combined with the high birth rates in many Muslim communities is downright troubling.
You don’t know any of that.
Yes he does know that. Instead of saying that, perhaps you could present reasons why you think he’s wrong.
Sounds terrible.
There are whole states in the US South, dominated by fundie xians, that I have no intention of ever going to.
I’ve been to some of them in the past on business. Best I can say, it was good that I didn’t know then what I do know now.
Then there is the way that Israelis treat children – of course not their own.
Actually, I think the actions of the soldiers in that video are exemplary. They were gentle even when restraining the children, never mocked the children or raised their voices to them, tolerated all the anguish and abuse the children poured upon them without even a hint of a desire to retaliate in kind, and kept their weapons safe.
Clearly, the children know nothing of the politics involved, and their mother staged the whole incident and brought her children along for the video clips.
Is her claim to land rights in the area the soldiers were guarding legitimate? I have no clue. All I can observe is that, right or worng, she has no more a realistic chance of reclaiming it than the Lenape have of reclaiming Manhattan.
There are times when it is wise to stay and fight for what’s right, and other times when it’s wise to accept defeat and move on. We each have to exercise our own wisdom (or lack thereof) in deciding when that applies…but I think the time is long since past for this woman, at least, to move on.
Indeed, if my suspicion is correct, and she wasn’t even alive at the time the land was taken from her family…then her Quixotic quest is about as pointless and foolish as they come. Sure, maybe the Israelis weren’t right to take her land, but that doesn’t make it wise to continue such a fight for generations. Sometimes the bad guys win, and sometimes fighting the bad guys does more damage than simply leaving the fight.
b&
Do you have any idea what-so-ever how that sounds to other people?
Yes, I actually do have an idea of how my writing comes across to others. I tend to get a fair amount of feedback, positive and negative both.
But do you have any idea how it sounds to people for criticizing fully-armed soldiers for mishandling children when the video shows them acting with gentleness and restraint few childcare workers can muster?
I don’t think so.
If you did, you’d know that you’re not displaying much in the way of a command of the use of rhetoric, as there’re far more effective ways to make your points.
Cheers,
b&
I just can’t wrap my head around this comment, “abuse the children poured upon them”. WTF?
You mean the screams of those distraught children is ABUSIVE to those soldiers?
Really?
And this,”and their mother staged the whole incident and brought her children along for the video clips.”
And you know this how? You were there, or maybe present when the mother planned it?
And maybe Rosa Parks should have just stayed at the back of the bus because it had always been that way, and she had “no more a realistic chance of reclaiming it [the front seat] than the Lenape have of reclaiming Manhattan.”
Perhaps I’m naive, but to see a soldier’s conduct as exemplary for not retailiating or drawing their weapons against hysterical children is beyond belief. Thankfully were I come from, our soldiers are not put in this position.
That could just as easily be a video on how Palestenian mothers deliberately put their children in harms way.
But I guess that’s better than strapping explosives on them.
No matter how right their cause is that is vile behaviour.
And while we are at it, how do I go about reclaiming ancestral land in eastern Poland that was annexed into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1945?
Do you think my grandparents should have sent their children to confront Soviet troops ?
That last question is rhetorical as my grandparents had the good sense to flee to Canada by way of France and the UK before this could have happened.
You probably did not take into account that the woman in the video might NOT have been as lucky as your grandparent to have the option to “flee to Canada by way of France and the UK”.
“That could just as easily be a video on how Palestenian mothers deliberately put their children in harms way.”
Victim blaming is never out of fashion, is it?
To be fair, there have been numerous resettlement options throughout the decades, and many Palestinians have indeed resettled. The Palestinians who haven’t resettled have done so out of hopes of reclaiming their ancestral homes, not out of lack of options.
Whether or not it is “right” for those Palestinians to continue to fight for the right of return is a separate question, and one that goes back to the founding of Israel, British imperialism, and the fallout from the Holocaust — and then continues on with Israel’s actions in the decades since then.
But it doesn’t have anything to do with Palestinians not having other options.
b&
“The Palestinians who haven’t resettled have done so out of hopes of reclaiming their ancestral homes, not out of lack of options.”
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. As far as google searches can reveal, the only major “resettlement” options seem to have been those offered by the US to Palestinians refugees in Iraq displaced by the Iraq war.
Your Google-fu needs work.
http://prrn.mcgill.ca/research/papers/khashan_9404.htm
It’s from McGill University in Canada and does a good job explaining all the nuances of the whole history without bias. Israel regularly gets slammed.
Read it and you’ll learn, for example, “that more than 70 percent of Syria’s 300,000 Palestinians live away from refugee camps,” just to pick one random tidbit.
There’re lots of possible reasons why the family in the video isn’t one of those quarter-million Palestinians who’ve integrated themselves into Syrian society, or the other large(r) populations in Lebanon and elsewhere…but opportunity can’t be cited as a reason.
b&
I notice with interest that even the bits you quote are not about Palestinians living under Israeli or Palestinian territories, but of those living in Syria.
On the other land, with much less “Google-fu” (whatever that may be) than yours, one can find compendiums like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_freedom_of_movement
Long story short: There are restrictions even on movement within Israeli and Palestinian territories. Movement outside seems to be well out of the question.
My point is that, if hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have already successfully resettled, it’s silly to suggest that those remaining didn’t have the opportunity to do so.
b&
@Ben Goren: and my point is that without taking into account the difference in the ground situation now and when those re-settlements happened and now, and without taking into account the extreme hardship that even those re-settlers might have had to endure in their resettlement, it is indeed rather silly to assume that every randomly chosen Palestinian protesting occupation of his or her ancestral property had the opportunity to move to a greener pasture.
And neither does the culture of victimhood.
We must be using different dictionaries. If a group of people booted out of their homeland by military force are not ‘victims’ then I don’t know who is.
“as the world gathers against the believers in Syria … seeking to hijack our sincere and blessed uprisings,”
This begs the question, WHO are the “believers”? Assad? or the Rebels? Are we, the non-muslim West, being blamed for this (Muslims vs Muslim) conflict as well? If we, the West, America, the UN, whoever, get blamed for helping one side instead of the other, or get accused of being invaders. (save your Iraq war comments please) This is a no-win situation. it’s always a no-win situation when religion is involved.
Save our Iraq comments because? Because that is typical of how we “help one side instead of the other, or get accused of being invaders”? Who are “the believers”? They are the phoney “Free Syrian Army,” a bunch of religious fanatics and other murderous thugs armed to the teeth and supported by France, who is just dying to get their colony back, and the United States. The Free Syrian Army is free in name only, unless you count the torture and murder they freely commit; they are Syrian in name only, with an estimated 70% or more coming from other parts of the world; and they are an army in name only, being jihadists and other mercenaries, often at war with one another. Here is news of one of their most recent directives from a “cleric.” http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/207/0/3376.htm
For all the comments on the politics is right, and that it is not ONLY about religion, Harris makes the point well that it is the particular religion that is significant here.
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/on-the-freedom-to-offend-an-imaginary-god