oyvindstrommen.be traktningar

Lately I have been thinking about how to become a popular blogger. You know. How can I get tens of thousands of people to visit my website every day, how can I get TIME magazine to quote me, how can I sell my upcoming books “How Blogging will Change Everything” and “Why Bush is a Sissy Liberal”. In this context, I realize that the below text, in all its political correctness is a bit of a tactical bummer. But well, I was quite happy about it, and I do think I make a couple of points, and fools rush in, they say, so I thought I’d just publish it.

Still, I have do something to pull visitors. Hello, Google. Hi, Technorati. Catch this: “Islam is evil”, “Bad Islam”, “Why Robert Spencer is the wisest man on Earth”, “Jihadwatch tells the truth”, “Political correctness sends Europe to hell!”, “New Research: Mythical Norwegian Trolls were in fact Muslims”. That should do the trick – now for my article.

-

Ain’t no Vietcong ever called me a nigger, Muhammad Ali.

I am a European, but – you might call me a sucker for punishment – I sometimes read American books. Lately I have read a whole bunch of books and articles and blog posts all telling me pretty much the same thing. Europe is doomed!

While I try to think off where I have heard this talk before, I have to point out that these books are sometimes almost amusing in the way they twist the tales. In the middle of some examples illustrating the doubtlessly more mainstream (and endlessly more worrying) anti-gay sentiments found amongst Muslims, Bruce Bawer mentions another example he has dug up. And this time he has found a genuine scary bearded fellow, who declared a fatwa against Terence McNally, a death sentence no less (1). The fellow is called Omar Bakri Muhammed, and he was a representative of the Shariah Court of Britain. Wow! That sounds impressive! The Shariah Court of Britain.

I now understand why Booklist said Bawer’s book was full of “almost unbelievable revelations for Americans”. I mean it: The Shariah Court of Britain. Important people!

But here’s one revelation Bawer’s book, unbelievably, did not contain. McNally wasn’t only threathened by the Shariah Court of Britain, he was also threathened by another organisation which I will have to say sounds even more important: the National Security Movement of America. I mean it! The security movement! And while Omar Bakri Muhammed actually warned local Muslims against chopping the head of McNally – he wanted an Islamic state to do that if McNally happened to drop by one – the security movement in a phone threat against the «Jew guilty homosexual Terrence McNally» made it clear that they would «exterminate every member of the theatre and burn the place to the ground».

And this is the security movement of America. By now, you might wonder why they were so much in agreement with the Shariah Court of Britain. Simple reason: McNally’s play Corpus Christi was interpreted as showing Jesus as a gay man.

-

By now, I hope that you’ve realised that the National Security Movement of America is not the NSA, but a bunch of Christian loonies. If you actually thought it was the NSA I suggest you take a good long hard look at your friends and ask yourself: Are these people really sane? Am I?

Here’s another revelation: The Shariah Court of Britain isn’t quite as important as it sounds. And, on the top of that, Bawer pulled exactly the same trick as Norway’s number one newspaper, part of the establishment that he either loves to hate or loves to pretend he hates just so that he can sell more books. In an article so full of factual errors it could make even a journalist blush (2), the newspaper VG told us that «Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad wants to turn Norway into an Islamic state, governed after the sharia laws», before informing us that his organisation is standing very close to bin Laden and his al-Qaeda, ideologically speaking, and that it has already been established in the land of the fiords.

The article went on explaining what the sharia laws would mean, as well as quoting Omar Bakri Muhammed extensively.

- Within one year we will be strong enough to step forward, in public places, in the streets, in the universities […].

That never happened. If you haven’t guessed already, here’s why: Omar Bakri Muhammed is not only a scary bearded fellow, he is also a complete nut! And just like the National Security Movement he’s not a very represantive nut. While the VG article from 2002 describes Muhammeds organisation al-Mujahiroun as the political leadership of Hisb-ut-Tahrir (HT) and HT itself as «a more secret, militant recruitment group» Muhammed in reality left the latter (rather public and quite vocal) group in 1996.

What does that mean?

Imagine someone leaving the Ku Klux Klan because the Klan has gone soft on the importance of white superiority… that’s Omar Bakri Muhammed. Imagine a split inside the National Security Movement of America because someone thought that the threats against McNally weren’t juicy enough. That someone would be Omar Bakri Muhammed! But would VG quote him extensively and put his face on the front page then? Somehow, I just don’t think so.

Scary Muslims sell better! That’s why I have created this scary ASCII muslim:

(__)
(oo)

Oops, wrong drawing. That was just an ASCII cow.

Let’s get back to Bawer. The conclusion of his book «While Europe slept» is almost poetic:

As we walked aorund Amsterdam that March weekend, I thought about those Dutchmen emigrating to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Unlike Muslims in Europe, they’d integrate quickly – they’d find work, contribute to society, fit in. They already spoke English. Yet what, years from now, would their children think? Their grandchildren? What, for that matter, would they themselves think when they lay in bed at night, far from home, their minds flooding with images when they lay in bed at night, far from home, their minds flooding with images of the small, lovingly tended land of their birth, with its meticiously laid-out roads and walks and bicycle lanes, its painstakingly preserved old houses, its elaborate, brilliantly designed systems of dikes and canals?

[…] They seemed to have brought Western civilization to its utmost pinnacle in terms of freedom and the pursuit of happiness, and the road ahead, very much like the actual roads in the Netherlands, seemed to stretch to the horizon, straight, flat, smooth, and with nary a bump.

Notice the order. Dutch are neat people. And not only that – they speak English. Who would have imagined? Those darn Muslims, on the other hand, represent chaos – they are «the very peril that [will] destroy [the Dutch]».

And they are not productive to society, at all, no sir, and they don’t come to the Netherlands already knowing Dutch, regardless of the doubtless position that language has as lingua franca number one these days (3). Do they learn it after some time? Most do. And if they are crap at it, their children usually aren’t.

In that way they are not much different from any other immigrant. King George I of England, for instance, an immigrant from Hannover, spoke little English and instead used his native tongue. His heir, George II, also preferred German. Even Queen Victoria learnt German before she was taught English. In the BBC series «Blackadder Goes Forth», Rowan Atkinsons role character Captain Edmund Blackadder interrogates Captain Kevin Darling, whom he suspects to be a German spy. Captain Darling says that he is just as British as Queen Victoria. Captain Blackadder retorts: «So your father’s German, you’re half German and you married a German!».

American books aren’t the only source telling me how terrible Muslims are. The order-chaos picture of Bruce Bawer reminds me much off a cartoon made by some funny guy in the cozy Flemish party Vlaams Blok (4).

The top part of the cartoon said «This is the way it is», and was showing a city scene with a mosque in the background, smashed windows, an immigrant mugging an elderly woman, another immigrant apparently shooting up on heroine. The bottom part says «It must become like this», and shows a church, windows full of flowers and only white and happy people. Oriana Fallaci took it another step further and tells me that Muslims are «breeding like rats» (5), that there is only one Islam, a pool of rotten water, and that those who disagree with her are traitors, a fifth column of the West.

Yeah!

-

When Tariq Ali visited Brussels in February 2006, to talk about his Islam Quintet-books, a woman approached him after his talk. – I’m not a racist, she said, – but… Tariq Ali answered: – That makes me very worried, you know. When people say they are not racists, that usually means they are.

All of these people who are not racists love anecdotal evidence. I am not a racist, they say, and then point out that they once experienced a Moroccan stopping in the road in front of them, and buhu – all Moroccans are terrible and bad and they block traffic! I am not a racist, they say, and then go on to talk about the Moroccans they saw throwing the empty wrappings from their frietjes into the river and buhu – all Moroccans are terrible and bad! And if a Norwegian reads in the newspaper that someone «of foreign background» did something criminal, well, he feels sure that he is not a racist, and that the criminal was Pakistani, and it does not really matter if the criminal wasn’t an immigrant at all, but rather a Polish ’tourist’ or a British drunkard.

I like anecdotal evidence too! So, after hearing all these stories I sat down to think long and hard, to come up with stories about how I have been suppressed by mean Muslims. But… eventually… I had to conclude in pretty much the same way as Muhammad Ali. No Muslim has ever done me any harm.

When I was the one no one wanted on the team in the football match in the lunch breaks in my early schooldays, the little Ronaldos that didn’t pick me weren’t Muslim. Not a single one of them.

In fifth grade, my class was to build a neighbourhood out of cardboard and I got into trouble because of a little capitalist enterprise, ironically enough considering my later leftist leanings. Daringly, and revolutionary, enough, I turned my cardboard house into a cardboard shop. The teacher found this to be completely outrageous, since «everyone» had agreed that the neighboorhood was only to have one, presumably state-run, shop; in my opinion little but a laughable kiosk. My shop sold Thai figuralia and antennas for satelite TV, I was a globalist already back then! And the teacher who gave me hell and wanted to turn class into a court session? He wasn’t a Muslim. He wasn’t even a Socialist. He was a Christian.

I could continue like this. The guys who attacked me when I was pushing my bike home one evening in eight grade… they weren’t Muslim either. Actually, I rather suspect that a couple of them have grown into voters for the anti-immigration Progress Party.

The worst experience I have ever had with Muslims, and I am not so sure of their religious conviction, was when a bunch of Pakistani boys came into my motel room during a school trip at 15, stating – in an exaggerated accent – «Hi, we are the new robbers». It was a practical joke. I feel convinced that the one who had the idea wasn’t any of the Pakistani boys, but a certain little blond girl from a Western Norwegian fiord.

Therefore, I’m not anti-Norwegian, but…

What kind of experiences have I had with Muslims?

I won’t let my prejudices rule, some of the people I have met and who came from Muslim countries might have been something else. The guy who prepared a most delicious dinner for the guy living next door on the student home, just to be friendly, could have been Zoroastrian. I only know he sure could cook! The guy who taught me to play «It’s now or never» on the accordion might have been an Atheist, or a Christian, or whatever, but he sure had a lot of patience.

But even with these uncertain examples, the list of Muslims who I’ve met is long – and I never had a problem with any single one of them:

1. Not one of them chopped my head off because I am an infidel.

2. Not one of them sent me letter bombs because I like to drink beer. In fact, a couple of them probably drink harder than I do, haram or no haram.

3. Several of them are almost as good cooks as the guy who might have been Zoroastrian.

4. None of them raped me, nor did they rape any women, sheep, ducks or cartoonists.

5. As far as I know, not a single one of them celebrated the attacks on WTC and Pentagon by eating cake.

6. None of them swindled me. On the other hand, several of them sold me both good and cheap food.

7. None of them were breeding like rats at the time I saw them.

Conclusion: I just wonder about one thing. What the hell is wrong with my Muslims? Why aren’t they evil?

-

Footnotes:

1. Bruce Bawer: While Europe slept (2006), p. 25

2.Vil ha Norge som islamsk stat, VG, 24.04.02.

3. Actually, the Netherlands is home to quite a few Muslims hailing from Suriname, a small Latin American country where Dutch is the official language.

4. Now Vlaams Belang

5. Oriana Fallaci: Fornuftens styrke (Force of Reason), 2004.

Tags: Bloggkritikk, Eurofascisme, In English