Notify The Art Museums

Just how much censorship is required to satisfy the sons of Allah?

http://www.indexonline.org/en/indexindex/articles/2005/2/italy-artist-s-sculpture-banned-from-the-ven.shtml :

Sculpture banned from the Venice Biennale

"A sculpture by German artist Gregor Schneider was banned from the 51st Venice Biennale because the event’s organisers said it might be offensive to Muslims. The sculpture was a 15-metre-high cube covered in black fabric modelled after the Ka’ba in Mecca and was set to be displayed in St. Mark’s Square. A spokesman for the Venetian arts authority said there was a danger that Muslims would feel provoked by the work, heightening the risk of the city being vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Schneider insisted that the artwork was not meant as a provocation. He said he wanted to symbolise a connection between European and Arab cultures. The organisers tried to place the sculpture at another site, but finally decided not to display it at all. Instead, Schneider showed a video explaining his failed attempt."

Hugh Fitzgerald has written an important commentary on the above item.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/006771.php :

"Statues, like paintings of any living creature, are forbidden in Islam. If the Bamiyan Buddhas managed for centuries to survive in Islam, it was only because the technical wherewithal was lacking. Once the Taliban acquired enough Western-produced explosives, they could finish the job.

"A little booklet, possibly the most pathetic guide to an art museum ever published, is the 'Guide to the Kabul Museum.' I have a copy, published in 1964, long before the Taliban arrived on the scene to see Islamic justice done. There are a few dozen pages, a handful of photographs. It is clear that the ancient Greco-Buddhist civilization of Afghanistan, and of all other non-Islamic civilizations, were reduced mostly to rubble -- the flying rubble that we see whenever we see pictures of Afghanistan.

"For in Islam, the pre-Islamic or non-Islamic artifacts are of no interest, no valuable. They can be destroyed, they should be destroyed. The tens of thousands of Hindu temples destroyed by the Muslim invaders, a partial list of which was compiled by Sita Ram Goel, are perhaps the best-known example.
But what of everything that might have gone into that Kabul Museum but never made it?

"The greatest destruction of art works in human history is that wrought by Muslim conquerors on the non-Muslim lands and peoples they invaded, conquered, and subjugated.

"What will happen in Europe if it is islamized? If there are already people removing statues, however banal those statues may be, from art expositions now, what will happen in 10 years? In 20 years? Already statues have been vandalized or destroyed by Muslims -- in the Piazza del Popolo, and in a church in northern France (a statue of Mary and Jesus). Muslims have been recorded discussing their plans to destroy a celebrated fresco in Bologna that depicted Muhammad in Hell. What else is happening, and is being suppressed from us by worried European governments, whose elites, having been responsible for permitting millions of what are clearly enemy aliens, a classic fifth column, behind our own lines, cannot bring themselves to recognize the problem, and instead are intent on hiding the full truth from their own populations?..."

Can't happen here, you say? I'm afraid that it can. Already we are so far down the road to the policitical correctness of "We must not offend Muslims" that the mere prospect of perceived offense causes Americans to tippy-toe around. And in reaction to the alleged incidents regarding the Koran at Gitmo, CAIR has launched their "Explore the Quran" project, hot on the heels of their CAIR Library Project. See http://www.cair-net.org/explorethequran/ and http://www.cair-net.org/libraryproject/ . Meanwhile, Anti-CAIR is dealing with a lawsuit, which is nothing short of an attempt at censorship. See http://socialsense.blogspot.com/2005/06/web-sued-by-muslim-group.html .

Now, back to the issue of art appreciation. I don't often visit The National Gallery of Art, but when I do, I don't notice many Muslims there, unless there is an exhibit specific to Islam, such as one which extolled the brutal Salladin (I hope I have that name correct. The exhibit to which I am referring is one which I visited several years ago and largely contained tapestries).

I'm guessing that most of the depictions at the NGA are offensive to Muslims, so they don't visit. Fair enough. But how far away are we from a situation similar to the ones in Italy or in France?

If Mr. Fitzgerald is accurate in his commentary--and I believe that he is--some of the works of art which you appreciate today may be forbidden in the future. We had better have a good look at them while we can, because the day may come when the only view we have of those classic works will be in coffee-table volumes.

A Book Excerpt

The following in an excerpt from Paul Sperry's Infiltration: How Muslims Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington (Nelson Current, Nashville, Tennessee: 2005, page 319):

"Citizens should also find out what kind of mosque is going up in their neighborhood, and who is backing it. I did. I noticed a large mosque under construction not far from my home in Fairfax, Virginia. So I investigated. After pulling the real estate records at the county courthouse, I discovered the trustees were from Pakistan...the cradle of the Taliban movement....Then I learned that the lead trustee, Mian Muhammad Saeed, is also the imam of the mosque, called the Islamic Center of Northern Virginia. It turns out Saeed was the spiritual adviser to the Pakistani terrorist who last decade fatally gunned down two CIA employees and wounded three others outside the agency's headquarters in nearby Langley, Virginia. After his recent execution, the Pakistani community hailed him as a martyr. Saeed is a hard-line Pakistani cleric. This is information the public should be aware of..."

Mr. Sperry also provides a list of ten ways to defeat the perfect enemy:
1. Not in my backyard [from which the above excerpt is taken]
2. Enforce the oath of allegiance
3. Profile Muslim travelers
4. Audit Muslim charities and mosques
5. Break off official ties with CAIR
6. Expose the Saudi Embassy
7. Deny security clearance to Muslim activists
8. Offer scholarships in Arabic
9. Fight Muslim activism in public schools
10. Step up counterterrorism training at Quantico

The book concludes with the following words:

"America is fighting a perfect enemy, one protected by religious freedoms and racial sensitivities. And we have a less-than-perfect understanding of what motivates the enemy, and how it is aided and abetted by a religious support network that exploits American culture and tax laws and is patiently infiltrating the American system to overturn it from within. More than three years after 9/11, we are still hacking at the branches of terrorism rather than striking at its root."

Infiltration should be required reading for every American and, more importantly, for every governmental official.

Another Activist At The Mosque

Just what the Wahhabi Corridor needs--another activist of the Muslim variety. According to the Washington Post, the Falls Church Mosque has a new imam, who also happens to a spokesman for Ahmed Abu Ali.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/10/AR2005061001869_pf.html :

Leader Named at Mosque
Falls Church Site Selects Activist
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Saturday, June 11, 2005

"Dar Al Hijrah, one of the Washington area's largest mosques, has named a prominent Muslim activist as its new spiritual leader. The new imam is Shaker El Sayed, who has been secretary general of the Muslim American Society for the past five years. Sayed, 53, is an Egyptian immigrant who served in the late 1980s as imam of the Islamic Center of Washington on Massachusetts Avenue NW. Sayed said he was taking the post at a time of great challenges for Muslims in the area. 'There is a lot of stress on the community because of the 9/11 paranoia,' he said..."

Paranoia? Paranoia?

You are correct, Mr. Sayed, in saying that there is a lot of stress, but it's not because of 9/11 paranoia. We Americans are stressed because some 3000 of our countrymen died on 9/11 when Islamists committed acts of war on our native soil. And our stress levels are not relieved when the local mosque is led my someone who calls the tactics of terrorists "moderation."

This mosque apparently is fond of "activists," including Al-Timimi, a respected teacher there, who was recently convicted of treason.

Quoting further from the above article:

"Dar Al Hijrah in Falls Church is closely affiliated with the Muslim American Society, a 13-year-old organization that promotes Islam. The society has been linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, considered the world's largest and most influential Islamic movement, which advocates a purer, more restrictive form of Islam and greater reliance on Islamic law. [Translation = Wahhabism] The Egyptian-based Brotherhood generally renounces violence [Note the qualifier "generally." More doublespeak] but endorses resistance to 'occupation' by such groups as the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas. Hamas has conducted a campaign of suicide bombing against Israelis."

Despite the fact that he received his training in Islamic studies in Egypt, Sayed denies that he is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Pardon my skepticism, but I don't trust the game of "Sayed Said." The Post article further states that the new imam

"supports what he described as the movement's [Hamas's] moderation and its denunciations of violence."

Anyone who supports Hamas should not be giving speeches in a mosque less that seven miles from the seat of America's government.

Our Own Gullibility

In his book entitled Comes the Millennium, Jack Blake states, “the grand American experiment in individual freedom is in imminent danger from within, and the enemy is our own gullibility.” But Mr. Blake’s book is about his view that American intolerance and the political aggression of fundamentalist Christians is the principal threat to the ideals of our founding fathers and threatens to transform America into a totalitarian regime. I disagree with Blake. It is true that Americans are in danger from within, and that the enemy is our own gullibility, but the threat to America does not come from fundamentalist Christians, it comes from the Wahhabism that has been introduced, paid for, distributed, and reinforced by our “good friends,” the Saudis. In fact, we might also conclude that Wahhabism is directly responsible for every single act of Islamic terrorism since the end of World War II.

In a study conducted by the Center for Religious Freedom, entitled Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques, it becomes clear that America has become the target of Islamic violence. In a foreword by former Director of Central Intelligence, R. James Woolsey states:

“A major part of the reason for this and other important changes in the Kingdom was the Saudi royal family’s reaction to the tumultuous year of 1979 [Khomeini’s Rise to Power—ed]. We are still feeling the after-shocks today. The Saudis chose after the twin shocks of that year to strike a Faustian bargain with the Wahhabi sect and not only to accommodate their views about propriety, pious behavior, and Islamic law, but effectively to turn over education in the Kingdom to them and later to fund the expansion into Pakistan and elsewhere of their extreme, hostile, anti-modern, and anti-infidel form of Islam. The other side of the bargain was that if the Wahhabis would concentrate their attacks on, essentially, the U.S. and Israel, the Saudi elite would get a more-or-less free ride from the Wahhabis and the corruption within the Kingdom would be overlooked.”

Woolsey continues:

“Today in the Kingdom . . . young people are systematically infused with hostility for 'infidels.' Moreover, most young Saudis are not equipped when they graduate from school to perform the jobs necessary to operate a modern economy. Instead many are employed, if that is the right word, as, e.g., religious police – walking the streets to harass women whose veils may not fully cover their faces, for example. Young Saudis’ anger based on their lack of useful work and their indoctrination is palpable. It is not an accident that 15 of the 19 terrorists who attacked us on September 11 were Saudis. The New York Times (January 27, 2002) cited a poll conducted by Saudi Intelligence, and shared with the U.S. government, that over 95% of Saudis between the ages of 25 and 41 have sympathy for Osama bin Laden.”

Now, much has been written about the concerns of many (surely, not most) Americans about the thousands of Muslims who live among us. It may be fair to say that we are not being provided with the truth about what is happening within our own communities. For example, we have seen instances where Islamic leaders stand before a podium and renounce extremist views and publicly align themselves with the so-called “war on terror,” but should we believe it? Is it possible to think that most Muslims living in America stand solidly with the rest of us in adoration of the “land of the Free?” Perhaps not; a recently scheduled Muslim demonstration against terror fizzled.

But Mr. Woolsey continues:

“The Saudi-funded, Wahhabi-operated export of hatred for us reaches around the globe. It is well known that the religious schools of Pakistan that educated a large share of the Taliban and al Qaeda are Wahhabi. But Pakistan is not the sole target. I had in my office recently a moderate Muslim leader from an Asian country. He was in the U.S., seeking to obtain funds from foundations, so that he could have printed elementary school textbooks to compete with the Wahhabi-funded textbooks that are flooding his country and that are being made available to schools at little or no cost.

“The Wahhabi textbooks in his country, like textbooks in Saudi Arabia, teach that it is the obligation of all Muslims to consider all infidels the enemy. As an illustration of the consequences of such teaching, I have heard that in some cases during the fighting in Bosnia in the early nineties, American churches and synagogues that were raising funds for food and other aid for the Bosnian Muslims would approach local mosques and suggest a cooperative effort. On a number of occasions they were turned down and didn’t understand why. The reason was that for a Wahhabi Imam (and Sheikh Kabbani, perhaps the U.S.’s leading moderate Muslim leader, says that a substantial percentage of American mosques have Wahhabi-funded Imams), it is normally not believed to be permissible for Muslims to work with infidels, even if the purpose is to help Muslims.”

Reaching into America is the goal of the Wahabbists. They are capable, as we have seen, to do great harm to the American people, our guests, our institutions, and the economy, but there is no possibility that Jihadists can destroy America from an outward invasion. But these people do realize that American is within their grasp through subterfuge, and they are doing it almost in plain sight of us all, if only we would open our eyes to the truth.

Mr. Woolsey correctly points out that:

"Americans are not normally comfortable distinguishing between what is acceptable and what is not acceptable within a religion, unless they are, say, debating views within their own church. Because of the First Amendment and American culture, most Americans tend not to make judgments about others’ religions. But the Wahhabis and the Islamists whom they work with and support have a long political reach and their views have substantial political effect. Some of the consequences of this 'grotesque protection racket' have been quite lethal: American deaths and the failure to apprehend the terrorists who killed them."

Finally, this warning by the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency:

"Wahhabi and Islamist extremism today is the soil in which al Qaeda and its sister terrorist organizations are growing. We need to recognize the problem posed by the international spread of this hate ideology, including within the American homeland."

Okay, so what? For one thing, any American who believes that Islam is a peaceful, forgiving religion has lost touch with reality. Despite what the Koran says about Jews and Christians (people of the book), Muslim actions are speaking much louder than Koranic words, and in several important areas. Perhaps it is true that we are being over-inundated with information concerning terrorists; maybe most of us have tuned it out because it is disturbing and we’d much rather focus on our private, materialistic goals. Some might argue that this is just another example of the right-wing conspiracy to frighten people away from the democratic platform.

So let’s just take a quick look at what these “textbooks” are telling Muslims who are living in America; what to do, how to behave, and how to “embrace” America. Quoting now from the study conducted by the Center for Religious Freedom:

“On December 3, 2004, Ahmed, an Arab exchange student, walks down a palm lined boulevard in a working class neighborhood of Los Angeles. Since it is Friday, he bypasses the Hispanic restaurants, the 7/11, and the sporting goods store, and enters the King Fahd mosque – an elegant building of white marble etched with gold, adorned by a blue minaret, that is named after its benefactor, the King of Saudi Arabia. Later he will join 500 other California Muslims in prayer but, because it is early, he visits the mosque library where he picks up several books on religious guidance, written in Arabic, that are offered free to Muslims like him, newly arrived and uncertain on how to fit into this modern, diverse land.

"The tracts he opens are in the voice of a senior religious authority. They tell him that America, his adoptive home, is the 'Abode of the Infidel,' the Christian and the Jew. He reads: 'Be dissociated from the infidels, hate them for their religion, leave them, never rely on them for support, do not admire them, and always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law.'

"The advice is emphatic: 'There is consensus on this matter, that whoever helps Unbelievers against Muslims, regardless of what type of support he lends to them, he is an unbeliever himself.'

"The books give him detailed instructions on how to build a 'wall of resentment' between himself and the infidel: 'Never greet the Christian or Jew first. Never congratulate the infidel on his holiday Never befriend an infidel unless it is to convert him. Never imitate the infidel Never work for an infidel. Do not wear a graduation gown because this imitates the infidel.'

"Ahmed looks carefully at the book’s cover. It says 'Greetings from the Cultural Department' of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C. The book is published by the government of Saudi Arabia. The other books are textbooks from the Saudi Education Ministry, and collections of fatwas, religious edicts, issued by the government’s religious office, published by other organizations based in Riyadh."

Such hate-filled materials are not limited to distribution at mosques. In Alexandria, Virginia, a few scant miles from our nation’s capital, sits the Islamic Saudi Academy, a private school providing education for K through Grade 12. This school was established in 1984 and is owned and operated by the nation of Saudi Arabia, a bastion of Wahhabism. Quoting terrorism expert Daniel Pipes:

“[A]n outpost of Saudi values on American soil, the academy enjoys Saudi government funding, is chaired by the Saudi ambassador in Washington, and boasts a curriculum imported straight from Riyadh.” According to a February 25, 2002, front-page story, the Islamic Saudi Academy teaches students, among other things, that “the Day of Judgment cannot come until Jesus Christ returns to Earth, breaks the cross and converts everyone to Islam, and until Muslims start attacking Jews.”

Furthermore, global maps hanging in classrooms are missing Israel.

ISA recently made national news in February 2005, when 1999 valedictorian Ahmed Abu Ali was arrested on federal charges, including planning to assassinate President Bush and trying to establish an Al-Qaeda cell in the United States. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) has repeatedly called for an investigation into the operations of ISA. There are three other similar schools in the Washington, D.C. area: the Muslim Community School in Potomac, Maryland; the Institute for Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America in Fairfax, Virginia; and the Graduate School of Islamic Social Sciences of Ashburn, Virginia. According to Dr. Anis Shorrosh, a member of the Oxford Society of Scholars and a Palestinian Christian Arab American who is fluent in both Arabic and English, there are 300 exclusively Muslim schools in the United States. Furthermore, Susan Douglass, national curriculum advisor for social-science texts, formerly taught at ISA and is married to a Muslim who teaches at the Muslim Community School of Potomac, Maryland; she has influence on the material presented to children attending our nation’s public school system.

The following quotation from Dawanet, a Muslim website, explains how thoroughly the public-relations campaign to Islamify our culture has invaded our educational system:

“Dawa means to invite non-Muslims to accept the truth of Islam. Performing Dawa involves both our words and actions….Students are routinely exposed in their classroom to new information and opinions, hence they tend to be more receptive to new beliefs and ideas. Schools are therefore fertile grounds where the seeds of Islam can be sowed inside the hearts of non-Muslim students. Muslim students should take ample advantage of this opportunity and present to their schoolmates the beautiful beliefs of Islam….We should use every opportunity to sensitize non-Muslim peers and school staff to Islam and to establish an environment in which everywhere a non-Muslim turns, he notices Islam portrayed in a positive way, is influenced by it and eventually accepts Islam…”

According to Dr. Shorrosh, author of Islam Revealed, Americans are sleeping through an invasion. He believes that the United States is under systematic attack from within and cites the following as danger signals: hate-crime bills are terminating freedom of speech, dialogues in the media and in institutions of learning are proclaiming the virtues of Islam and propagandizing that Islam is similar to Judeo-Christianity, Muslim sympathizers are serving in political office, Muslims are buying up stock in various public media, Muslim funding is establishing Centers for Islamic Studies at our universities, various organizations are appealing to Americans for sympathy and tolerance toward immigrants from oppressed Muslim countries, and numerous charities are serving as money-launderers for terrorist organizations.

One of the leaders in the public-relations campaign is CAIR, which was established in 1984 under the banner of “Establishing Trust, Building Partnerships.” Just recently, this organization completed its library project, whereby pro-Islam materials have been donated to every library system in the United States; Saudi Arabia contributed substantially to the funding of this project, and, as a result, the materials are particularly adept at whitewashing information about Wahhabism. Not only have the materials been placed, but also Muslims are encouraged to check out the material on a regular basis so as to keep the books and videos in circulation and thus out of the book sales which larger systems use to make room on their shelves. In addition, CAIR is presently running a Quran-distribution program. This newest public-relations strategy is making available an English translation which promotes hatred toward the infidels. The translation was so objectionable that even the Los Angeles Public School System removed it from their shelves.

Furthermore, CAIR is not the innocuous civil-rights organization it purports to be. The organization’s connections to terrorism run deeply, in spite of CAIR’s denials. For example, in October 1998, CAIR demanded the removal of a Los Angeles billboard which criticized Osama bin Laden because the depiction was “offensive to Muslims.” CAIR has also defended other militant Islamists, including Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheikh who planned to plant bombs at various New York City landmarks; in addition CAIR proclaimed the conviction of the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing as “a travesty of justice.” CAIR protests nearly every arrest of a suspected terrorist, usually on the grounds of profiling. This past weekend, for the second time in a month, CAIR held events at the Sheraton Premiere Hotel, located in Vienna, Virginia. The second event was a fundraising banquet, and, attending the meeting, were the parents of aspiring Presidential assassin Ahmed Abu Ali and Senator John Warner of Virginia. Just a few days ago, Florida Governor Jeb Bush sent CAIR a letter commending the organization for its “contributions to the protection of civil rights and freedom of religion.” All this pandering to CAIR in spite of the warning from Steven Pomerantz, the FBI’s former chief of counterterrorism:

“CAIR, its leaders and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups.”

What should we conclude? First, we should think that former Central Intelligence Director Woolsey knows what he’s talking about when he says,

“Wahhabi and Islamist extremism today is the soil in which al Qaeda and its sister terrorist organizations are growing. We need to recognize the problem posed by the international spread of this hate ideology, including within the American homeland.”

I suspect that the U. S. Constitution protects free speech for Muslims, just as it does for everyone else. But are textbooks prepared by a foreign government, which incite discord within American borders, also protected? Muslims have the right to express themselves, but does our Constitution protect the King of Saudi Arabia when he or his government provokes a wall of resentment? Encouraging Muslims to hate their American hosts, along with Jews, would seem to present a clear and present danger to the safety and security of the American people, so I think there is cause to wonder how our government intends to safeguard us when the enemy is already here.

Terrorists are urged to “use” American law against Americans who may want to prosecute them by encouraging them to make claims of duress and abusive treatment, and instructing them insist on their constitutional rights. Extremists are taught how to take advantage of free legal representation. All of this suggests to me a conspiracy against American democracy and its people by the people who petitioned us for permission to live here.

Any American who sees “Reds” under his bed may be a fool. On the other hand, any American who fails to see the danger of Wahabbism when it is standing directly in front of him is irrationally, dangerously, and potentially terminally gullible. The threat is real, and unless or until Americans become aware of this danger, and begin to insist that their elected officials acknowledge this menace as well, they are unwisely subjecting themselves, and their families to horrific consequences.

Jointly authored by Always On Watch and Social Sense.

Dave Chapelle's spiritual "crisis"

Dave Chapelle as America's most vicious blind white supremacist

Comedian (and DC native) Dave Chapelle signed a $50 million deal with the Comedy Central TV network for two years of his Chapelle's Show, only to "disappear" and put a halt to production.

Dr. Rusty Shackleford of the irreverent The Jawa Report cites a MSNBC article which stated that Chapelle '"was having problems throughout the writing," Farley added. "It dealt with some very difficult sexual and political and racial material ... He himself has sort of changed inside as he has become a practicing Muslim and so with all those issues and the fact that he wants to make sure the show projects him and his comedy in the right light."'

If you're not familiar with Chapelle's Show and Dave Chapelle's brand of humor, the picture and caption might tell you something: also, The Jawa Report provides dead-on satire of what a new improved totally halal Chapelle's Show might be like.

Jihad Watch takes Northern Virginiastan to a wider audience

I forwarded the post on Fundraising for the HAMAS Fundraiser to Jihad Watch, and Rebecca Bynum, who's been filling in for Robert Spencer, graciously referred to it in a May 22 post on Jihad Watch. Read the feedback.

ICE Ice Baby

From the indefatigable Jeffrey Imm, moderator of Yahoo! Groups: dc-terror via Jihad Watch: ICE Campaign Against Illegal Money Transmitters & Underground “Hawalas” Yields 140 Arrests & 138 Indictments Nationwide

This press release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) cites actions against two DC area residents running illegal money transfer operations. Northern Virginiastan has already reported on Louay Habbal, the Vienna resident arrested for operating an illegal money transfer business that sent $23 million to Syria. This press release also notes that on May 20, "Rahim Bariek, 46, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Afghanistan and resident of Herndon, Virginia, pleaded guilty in Alexandria to operating an unlicensed money transmittal business that wired millions of dollars to Iran, Pakistan, and areas in Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban between 2001 and 2003."