LAW, ISLAM AND THE WEST

In an insightful essay "Russia is Dying and Islamists will grab parts of the Carcass," The Australian 31/10/05, p.81 conservative writer Mark Steyn describes the imploding of Russia. Most Russian women abort their foetuses: 70 per cent of pregnant women in fact. Russia's population is projected to be down below 130 million by 2015, from 148 million in 1992. By the end of this century it will probably drop to 50 million.
Russia has the fastest growing rate of HIV infection in the world and by 2010, Steyn says, AIDS will kill up to 750,000 Russians per year. The result: "it will be Russia's fate to have large chunks of its turf annexed by the Islamic world." Only Muslim regions of Russia have resisted the trends of racial suicide.
Political corruption is eating away at the heart of Russian society. Alena Ledeneva in "Russia's Economy of Favours," (Cambridge University Press, 1998) says that in Russia "You buy judges like you buy a TV set". According to the Russian Interior Affair's Department, criminal groups ("Mafia") even control about 400 banks and 47 Exchanges. The Russian Mafia controls about 80 per cent of private banks. Crime is Russia's major growth industry (see Robert Zuzowski, "Corruption in Post-Communist Europe," The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies, vol.30, no.1, Spring 2005). In effect, the rule of law has gone. Now if this could happen in Russia, it could also happen in other lands where fundamental and sacred rights of freedom have, or are being suppressed.

Here in Australia, legitimate freedom of speech discussions about major threats to Western civilization are prevented by race/hate and religious/hate legislation such as the Victorian version of this draconian legislation the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act. For example, two Christian pastors who perceived Islam as a threat to Christian civilization were penalised by the V.C.A.T. and required to place apologies in newspapers to the cost of about $70,000. During the hearing when the pastors wished to read passages from the Koran to support their case, the complainants objected that this amounted to "vilification," an objection which was upheld. This effectively removed any form of defence.

The Racial and Religious Tolerance Act was strongly supported by some ethnic and religious groups - but was widely rejected by the Australian community. Most of the 15,000 submissions which the Victorian government received were opposed to it. It was pushed through Parliament like much of the race/hate legislation has been: in the face of widespread public opposition merely to make certain professional ethnics happy. Such legislation creates work for the victimisation industry, ensuring that it remains in business.

The guts of the Act is that vilification occurs when a person makes a statement about a person's religious beliefs which that person feels vilifies him/her. That which is said may be true and reasonable, but that is not necessarily a defence.
As Charles Francis QC pointed out in a seminar paper to the Christian Legal Society on 3 September 2005, the Act is based on a presumption of guilt and puts the onus on the respondent to prove innocence: all quite contrary to our common law legal tradition of granting a presumption of innocence. Thus the respondent must show as a defence that he/she acted reasonably and in good faith, with the onus of proof being upon them. It is a burden almost impossible to meet.

In this context it is worthwhile to briefly consider a paper by Professor John C. Zimmerman of the University of Nevada entitles "Roots of Conflict: The Islamist Critique of Western Value," (The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies, vol.30, no.4, Winter 2005).
The paper is a study of the political/theologies of the leading Islamic thinkers. Zimmerman looks at two camps of thinkers: traditionalists and modernists. Both groups abhor Western values and do not give any pride of place to the concept of individual freedom. The State should instead enforce Sharia, the religious law reflecting the will of God and individuals must submit to this law. Page references that follow are from professor Zimmerman's paper.

Traditionalist Islamists include Hasan al-Banna (1906-1949) of Egypt and also of Egypt Sayyid Qutb (1908-1966), Ayatollah Khomeini (1902-1989) and Syed Abul A'La Mawdudi (1903-1979) of Pakistan. Traditionalists wish to see an Islamic revolution worldwide. Modernists don't generally advocate a global jihad but focus on enforcing Sharia locally in the hope that the seeds of Islam will spread.
However in terms of the rejection of fundamental Western values such as individual liberty and the rights of women, both camps are in agreement.

Hasan al-Banna was strongly critical of the materialism of the West and the secularisation a "destructive leaning towards the things which are most damaging to wisdom and body." (p.428) Western nations are "now bankrupt and in decline," and their "foundations are crumbling, and its institutions and guiding principles are falling apart." (p.430) al-Banna advocated for Egypt Sharia law and a return of women to the home. He supported polygamy and divorce in accordance with the Sharia, where a man can divorce his wife by saying three times that he divorces her. Al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. In 1937 and 1938 the Muslim Brotherhood referred to Jews as a "societal cancer" and called for a boycott of Egypt's Jewish merchants and businesses as the Nazis in Europe were also doing. (See B. Lia, "The Society of Muslim Brothers in Egypt" (Ithaca Press, p.244)

Both al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb use the metaphor of a sexually promiscuous woman to characterise the West, a metaphor also made in al-Qaeda propaganda. Western sexual relations, Qutb has said "have always conformed to the law of the jungle." (p.432) The West was a "morass of nervous and psychological disease, sexual perversion, constant anxiety, illness, lunacy, frequent crime and the lack of any human dignity in life." (p.433)
Qutb, whose philosophy greatly influenced Islamists throughout the world, championed Sharia doctrine and traditional practices such as polygamy, flogging fornicators, cutting off the hands of thieves and stoning to death adulterers. Western civilisation is finished; liberty only meant liberty to exploit - liberty for the small and powerful capitalist class to exploit the poor and helpless majority of people, and liberty to the man with capital to exploit the working man." Qutb felt that America and the West were "an overwhelming danger to humanity… Should we not issue a sentence of death?" This sentence of death was to be in the form of a worldwide jihad against the West.

The Ayatollah Khomeini shared Qutb's view of the West and a virulent anti-Semitism: the Jews had been tampering with the Koran, "these Jews are bent upon the destruction of Islam…we may one day find ourselves under Jewish rule." (p.436) And: "all our troubles today are caused by America and Israel.' (p.4436) Khomeini said of Western humanitarian concerns and the rule of law, "Your 'humanitarian' scruples are more childish than reasonable," and that "an Islamic judge can dispose of twenty trials in a single day," (p.436) As for the West its "ideology consists of nothing but blood-sucking, man-eating and the burning of countries. Its only aim is to live a depraved life." (p.437). Islam though will transform the West with Sharia law: "Islam wishes to bring all humanity under the umbrella of its justice." (p.439)

Syed Abul A' La Mawdudi, founder of Pakistan's Islamic Society Jamaat i Islami, rejected fundamental western values: "Islam has no trace of Western democracy" as it repudiates the philosophy of popular sovereignty." The West is based upon a solely materialist philosophy. In particular he sought to restrict the movement of women outside of the home unless accompanied by a male (hijab). The democratic system of government is but a reflection of the degeneracy of moral values in the West. Thus it is "better to subject one or a couple of people to severe physical torture for the purpose of safeguarding hundreds of thousands of people against countless moral and social evils." For Mawdudi, "Islam is a revolutionary ideology and program which seeks to alter the social order of the whole world and rebuild it in conformity with its own tenets and ideals." And "Islam wishes to destroy all States and governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam." (p.444)

Professor Zimmerman says that modernist Islam merely gives lip service to the ideal of democracy: "the actual specifics of how society would function differs little, if at all, from the views of traditionalists… the differences between traditionalists and modernists have more to do with packaging than the actual product."

The Iranian writer Ali Shariati (1933-1977), described as the "intellectual father of the Islamic revolution" (p.445) saw the West as oozing moral pollution and he wrote a book along those lines "Gharbzaadegi - Occidentosis: A Plague from the West," (1984). Democracy and Western liberalism "are in practice… an arena for the profit-hungry forces that have been assigned to transform man into an economic, consuming animal." (p.447) Thus Islam declared against all other religions and negates them all." And: "Muslims must defend Islam, its power and unity against Jews, Christians, and other enemies, [and] carry on holy war." (p.448).

Sudanese Islamist Hasa al Turabi (b.1933) is founder and leader of the Sudanese National Islamic Front (NIF). In 1989 Islamists seized power through a revolution and implemented Sharia laws. Turabi defended the Sharia laws on flogging, stoning and amputations and denied that widespread human rights abuses were occurring in the Sudan. Such abuses include the crucifixion of convicts. Turabi also supported the death sentence delivered by Khomeini against novelist Salmon Rushdie.

Tunisian Rachid al-Ghannouchi (b.1941) holds similar views on the West as Turabi. He sees the Jews' attitude towards other religions as "denying them and debasing their cultures. They never recognised Christianity and maintained their disrespectful view of Christ and his mother, which is no less contemptible than their view of Muhammad, his book and his followers." (p.454) He said "there are no civilians in Israel. The population - males, females and children - are the army reserve soldiers, and thus can be killed." (p.455). This extremism was denounced by Arab reformers.

Those ethnic elites who push for religious tolerance laws in other States should consider carefully the words of Syrian-born scholar Bassam Tibi, who in his book, "The Crisis of Modern Islam," (1988) says: "A protection of the individual from the arbitrariness of State authority is, according to my own research, unknown in any culture other than European. Islam, for example, knows neither a tradition of the right to resist State arbitrariness, nor an institutionally controlled obligation to observe legal norms." Thus: "both a principle of tolerance, in the sense of the freedom allowed to those who think differently, as well as the priority of reason, are foreign to it."

Australian jurists and parliamentarians should begin reading the works of the authors cited in professor Zimmerman's article. Ethnic elites need to reflect upon the long term consequences of their actions and what life will be like after the fall of the West.

At long last, criticisms of the United Nations are appearing, in muted form in the Australian newspapers. Thus the Sydney Morning Herald 16/9/05 p.9 carried an article by Michael Fullilore "United by Name but Not be Nature, and Therein Lies the Problem". The article is pro-UN reforms, but says that the UN "is still its own worst enemy," the reality of a disunited nations… is not a pretty sight."

More to the point is an article which The Australian 13/9/05, p.13 took from The Wall Street Journal. It is written by Joshua Muravchik, author of "The Future of the UN". The article begins:
"A deep reason the UN cannot be fixed is that it is a consortium of governments not answerable to a citizenry." The article concludes: "…the UN long ago squandered its moral standing by its record on human rights - one of its original purposes. Each year, up to half the governments that are the worse human rights violators are elected to the human rights commission."

The "disunity" of the UN does not discredit the view taken by nationalist writers of the importance of the UN to the construction of the new world order. A weapon need not function smoothly in all respects to be ultimately lethal. To investigate the real story behind how the United Nations has attacked to undermine the national sovereignty of the West the League has available a wonderful array of informative books (send for a list) and an excellent video by Jeremy Lee titled: "New World Order: Seduction or Solution," $25.00 posted from all League Book Services.