At a time when the world is wrangling with the threat posed by the so-called Islamic State and the resulting refugee crisis bringing an influx of Muslims into Europe, I am pleased to share that my most recent legal journal article was published this month by the International Journal for Religious Freedom (Vol. 7, Issue 1, 2014). The article is entitled, "Defending the freedom of expression: The danger and failure of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation’s campaign for global anti-blasphemy laws" (article starts at page 31).
There is no question that when it comes to an open discussion about religion, and more particularly, Islam, many in the Western world either hesitate or pause before sharing their legitimate questions, comments or concerns. However, the Organization for Islamic Cooperation ("OIC"), an international body representing the world's Muslim nations, has made a concerted effort to attempt to legally stifle any and all legitimate criticism of Islam, which it deems "blasphemy".
My article critically examines the OIC's campaign for global anti-blasphemy laws and argues that these laws once more
represent a dangerous legislative proposition that must be defeated by Western and
allied democracies. Take the time to read this carefully, and feel free to Tweet at me to discuss. I hope you enjoy reading my work.
Special thanks to Dr. Sauer and the editorial team at the IJRF for assisting with this publication.
To read my other Published Work, click here.
Showing posts with label Muslim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Muslim. Show all posts
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Monday, January 21, 2013
No Hebrew Please - This is Europe
Disturbing insights about the rise of anti-Semitism across Europe. Must read. - R.O.
No Hebrew Please - This is Europe
By: Bruce Bawer
Jan. 7, 2013 -- FrontPageMag.com
I wrote about it here recently: Israel’s ambassador to Denmark and the head of Copenhagen’s Jewish community have both warned Jews in that city that if they don’t want to be roughed up on the street by anti-Semites, they’d better not wear anything that would identify them as Jews – and, for good measure, they should also lower their voices when speaking Hebrew. The other day, in a supremely depressing article for Israel National News, Giulio Meottiprovided a round-up of similar developments from around Europe.
For instance: a Jewish theological seminary in Potsdam has asked its rabbis not to wear yarmulkes in public. Pupils at a Jewish school in Berlin have been warned to speak German, not Hebrew, on school trips – and to wear baseball caps over their yarmulkes “so you don’t give stupid people something to get annoyed about.” Jews at Rome’s main synagogue now remove their yarmulkes when leaving services; so do Jews in Malmö, Sweden. A Jewish teacher at an adult education center in Kristiansand, Norway, has been told “that wearing the star could be deemed a provocation towards the many Muslim students at the school.” And so on.
The reason for all this cautious behavior, of course, is to avoid the fate of people like the Paris Metro passenger who, Meotti noted, was recently beaten unconscious by a mob who pegged him as Jewish because he was reading a book by Paris’s chief rabbi.
Even Meotti’s laundry list didn’t come close to covering the full range of despicable anti-Semitic outrages, and reactions thereto, that have occurred in Western Europe of late. One example: in early December, it was reported that in the wake of episodes at Edinburgh University in which an Israeli diplomat was “mobbed” and a speech by Israel’s ambassador was “disrupted by chanting students waving Palestinian flags,” many Jewish students, fed up with the “toxic atmosphere” (and, in some cases, scared to publicly identify as Jewish) had left for other colleges – and other countries.
Meotti is among the few journalists who have been sounding the warning for some time about the rise of Jew-hatred in Europe. The last few weeks, however, have seen a flurry of articles on the topic in relatively high-profile places. Can it be that the see-no-evil approach to this international catastrophe is finally giving way under the increasingly heavy weight of reality?
For example, Haaretz, which in late December ran an article entitled “France’s Jews on High Alert,” followed it up on New Year’s Eve with a piece by one Joel Braunold, who – after recalling that as a Jewish kid in London he found Americans’ and Israelis’ comments about anti-Semitism in Europe “hyperbolic,” ignorant, and almost racist – admitted that Europe does indeed have “a serious anti-Semitism problem” now, and that “the number of safe European capital cities has shrunk to a tiny number.” To make matters worse, Europe’s governments “are not taking the issue seriously”: either they dismiss anti-Semitism as a far-right pathology, or they blame it on Israel. This, Braunold says, won’t do:
Also on New Year’s Eve, the website of Public Radio International ran a pieceheadlined “Anti-Semitism a growing problem in France.” Noting that France has Western Europe’s largest Jewish and its largest Muslim populations, and that the Toulouse school shootings last March were only the most widely reported of “an alarming number of anti-Semitic attacks across France this year,” PRI quoted anti-Semitism expert Sammy Ghozlan as saying that French Jews now “avoid going out late, going to certain neighborhoods, wearing yarmulkes.”
PRI also interviewed a rabbi who travels around France with an imam, meeting young Muslims and trying to talk them out of their Jew-hatred. The rabbi explained that many Muslims justify their prejudice by citing Israel’s purportedly brutal treatment of Palestinians. Curiously – but, alas, not very surprisingly – the rabbi, instead of informing his Muslim interlocutors that they’ve been fed lies about Israel, said that he tells them not to think about Israel, but to focus rather on France. Sigh.
To its credit, PRI didn’t try to hide the fact that the problem at hand is, indeed, anti-Semitic prejudice and violence by Muslims. On the other hand, it did what it could – in familiar mass-media fashion – to spread the guilt around, as it were, making references to intercultural “tensions” and suggesting that the answer lies in “mutual understanding.” Needless to say, anyone who understands Islam understands that those whose mantra is “mutual understanding” just don’t understand at all.
Another article, on December 18, sought to sum up recent developments in Western Europe that have negatively affected people of faith. The authors referred in passing to bans on kosher and halal slaughter and to efforts to outlaw circumcision – matters, in short, of concern to both Jews and Muslims. But anti-Semitic violence? Not a word. Not even the Toulouse massacre rated a mention. On the contrary: the article’s main thrust was that a certain religious group – not Jews – is currently the object of cruel, widespread, and systematic attack:
• “France and Belgium now ban people from publicly wearing full-face veils while Switzerland, the Netherlands, and other European states have debated similar prohibitions. Islamic dress restrictions for teachers exist in some Swiss and German states.”
• “The distinctive dress of conservative Muslims has fueled a fear of ‘the other’ …The increasing restrictions on religious practice and expression in Western Europe both arise from and encourage a climate of intolerance against religious groups, especially those with strong truth claims and vigorous demands on their members. Muslims, in some instances, clearly are being targeted. This increasingly hostile atmosphere in turn triggers private discrimination, and sometimes even violence, against members of these groups.”
The authors’ conclusion: “If the lamp of liberty is to remain lit, Western Europeans must accept that the age of conformity to an official monoculture – secular or religious – is at an end. In the coming year, their countries should embrace their religiously diverse future and accord religious freedom to all.”
Where did this mischievous, duplicitous piece of nonsense appear? In theNational Interest, no less. And who wrote it? Two members of an “independent, bipartisan, federal body” called the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF): Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard law professor and former American ambassador to the Holy See who was appointed to the commission by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, andAzizah al-Hibri, a lawyer and philosopher who writes about “women’s issues, democracy, and human rights from an Islamic perspective” and who was named to the commission by President Obama.
In other words, the very arm of the federal government that should be joining Meotti and others in raising the alarm about the crisis of Muslim anti-Semitism in Western Europe would seem to be making a very explicit point of pretending that the crisis doesn’t exist at all – and of pretending, moreover, that the perpetrators of faith-based violence are, in fact, its victims. The grim truth about the plight of Jews in Europe, then, is starting to be articulated here and there – but U.S. authorities are doing their best, apparently, to turn that truth on its head.
No Hebrew Please - This is Europe
By: Bruce Bawer
Jan. 7, 2013 -- FrontPageMag.com
I wrote about it here recently: Israel’s ambassador to Denmark and the head of Copenhagen’s Jewish community have both warned Jews in that city that if they don’t want to be roughed up on the street by anti-Semites, they’d better not wear anything that would identify them as Jews – and, for good measure, they should also lower their voices when speaking Hebrew. The other day, in a supremely depressing article for Israel National News, Giulio Meottiprovided a round-up of similar developments from around Europe.
For instance: a Jewish theological seminary in Potsdam has asked its rabbis not to wear yarmulkes in public. Pupils at a Jewish school in Berlin have been warned to speak German, not Hebrew, on school trips – and to wear baseball caps over their yarmulkes “so you don’t give stupid people something to get annoyed about.” Jews at Rome’s main synagogue now remove their yarmulkes when leaving services; so do Jews in Malmö, Sweden. A Jewish teacher at an adult education center in Kristiansand, Norway, has been told “that wearing the star could be deemed a provocation towards the many Muslim students at the school.” And so on.
The reason for all this cautious behavior, of course, is to avoid the fate of people like the Paris Metro passenger who, Meotti noted, was recently beaten unconscious by a mob who pegged him as Jewish because he was reading a book by Paris’s chief rabbi.
Even Meotti’s laundry list didn’t come close to covering the full range of despicable anti-Semitic outrages, and reactions thereto, that have occurred in Western Europe of late. One example: in early December, it was reported that in the wake of episodes at Edinburgh University in which an Israeli diplomat was “mobbed” and a speech by Israel’s ambassador was “disrupted by chanting students waving Palestinian flags,” many Jewish students, fed up with the “toxic atmosphere” (and, in some cases, scared to publicly identify as Jewish) had left for other colleges – and other countries.
Meotti is among the few journalists who have been sounding the warning for some time about the rise of Jew-hatred in Europe. The last few weeks, however, have seen a flurry of articles on the topic in relatively high-profile places. Can it be that the see-no-evil approach to this international catastrophe is finally giving way under the increasingly heavy weight of reality?
For example, Haaretz, which in late December ran an article entitled “France’s Jews on High Alert,” followed it up on New Year’s Eve with a piece by one Joel Braunold, who – after recalling that as a Jewish kid in London he found Americans’ and Israelis’ comments about anti-Semitism in Europe “hyperbolic,” ignorant, and almost racist – admitted that Europe does indeed have “a serious anti-Semitism problem” now, and that “the number of safe European capital cities has shrunk to a tiny number.” To make matters worse, Europe’s governments “are not taking the issue seriously”: either they dismiss anti-Semitism as a far-right pathology, or they blame it on Israel. This, Braunold says, won’t do:
As Europe’s demography changes, governments have to start systemically educating their citizens that hating Jews is not ok, and that it is unjustifiable. This means going beyond Holocaust education and getting into touchy, hard topics such as Israel and Palestine. If the hate, fear and loathing come from today’s political situation, states have the obligation to make sure their citizens are not being brought up on a diet of racism. That starts with educating each and every child.Nowhere in Braunold’s piece, incidentally, does he mention Islam or Muslims. There’s nothing unusual about this, of course: this is the New Reticence, to which millions around the world now devoutly subscribe. Yet I would submit that this reticence – this readiness to acknowledge the offense but not name the offenders – is an essential part of the problem that Braunold claims to be determined to help overcome.
Also on New Year’s Eve, the website of Public Radio International ran a pieceheadlined “Anti-Semitism a growing problem in France.” Noting that France has Western Europe’s largest Jewish and its largest Muslim populations, and that the Toulouse school shootings last March were only the most widely reported of “an alarming number of anti-Semitic attacks across France this year,” PRI quoted anti-Semitism expert Sammy Ghozlan as saying that French Jews now “avoid going out late, going to certain neighborhoods, wearing yarmulkes.”
PRI also interviewed a rabbi who travels around France with an imam, meeting young Muslims and trying to talk them out of their Jew-hatred. The rabbi explained that many Muslims justify their prejudice by citing Israel’s purportedly brutal treatment of Palestinians. Curiously – but, alas, not very surprisingly – the rabbi, instead of informing his Muslim interlocutors that they’ve been fed lies about Israel, said that he tells them not to think about Israel, but to focus rather on France. Sigh.
To its credit, PRI didn’t try to hide the fact that the problem at hand is, indeed, anti-Semitic prejudice and violence by Muslims. On the other hand, it did what it could – in familiar mass-media fashion – to spread the guilt around, as it were, making references to intercultural “tensions” and suggesting that the answer lies in “mutual understanding.” Needless to say, anyone who understands Islam understands that those whose mantra is “mutual understanding” just don’t understand at all.
Another article, on December 18, sought to sum up recent developments in Western Europe that have negatively affected people of faith. The authors referred in passing to bans on kosher and halal slaughter and to efforts to outlaw circumcision – matters, in short, of concern to both Jews and Muslims. But anti-Semitic violence? Not a word. Not even the Toulouse massacre rated a mention. On the contrary: the article’s main thrust was that a certain religious group – not Jews – is currently the object of cruel, widespread, and systematic attack:
• “France and Belgium now ban people from publicly wearing full-face veils while Switzerland, the Netherlands, and other European states have debated similar prohibitions. Islamic dress restrictions for teachers exist in some Swiss and German states.”
• “The distinctive dress of conservative Muslims has fueled a fear of ‘the other’ …The increasing restrictions on religious practice and expression in Western Europe both arise from and encourage a climate of intolerance against religious groups, especially those with strong truth claims and vigorous demands on their members. Muslims, in some instances, clearly are being targeted. This increasingly hostile atmosphere in turn triggers private discrimination, and sometimes even violence, against members of these groups.”
The authors’ conclusion: “If the lamp of liberty is to remain lit, Western Europeans must accept that the age of conformity to an official monoculture – secular or religious – is at an end. In the coming year, their countries should embrace their religiously diverse future and accord religious freedom to all.”
Where did this mischievous, duplicitous piece of nonsense appear? In theNational Interest, no less. And who wrote it? Two members of an “independent, bipartisan, federal body” called the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF): Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard law professor and former American ambassador to the Holy See who was appointed to the commission by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, andAzizah al-Hibri, a lawyer and philosopher who writes about “women’s issues, democracy, and human rights from an Islamic perspective” and who was named to the commission by President Obama.
In other words, the very arm of the federal government that should be joining Meotti and others in raising the alarm about the crisis of Muslim anti-Semitism in Western Europe would seem to be making a very explicit point of pretending that the crisis doesn’t exist at all – and of pretending, moreover, that the perpetrators of faith-based violence are, in fact, its victims. The grim truth about the plight of Jews in Europe, then, is starting to be articulated here and there – but U.S. authorities are doing their best, apparently, to turn that truth on its head.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Why Is It 'Bigoted' to Criticize Religion?
A great article from Real Clear Politics about the controversial debate that has emerged surrounding the 'mosque/recreational centre' proposed to be built near Ground Zero. - R.O.
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August 18, 2010
Why Is It 'Bigoted' to Criticize Religion?
By David Harsanyi
When it comes to the proposed Islamic center near ground zero, I subscribe to President Barack Obama's position: "Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country."
But that's old news. Today the debate is the debate. And this debate is far more consequential.
There are those who continue to make the facile claim that any protest over Park51 is a display in un-American intolerance and contempt for the Constitution. This position treats criticism of faith -- religious institutions and symbols included -- as tantamount to "bigotry."
Given that there remains overwhelming opposition to the ground zero mosque, this viewpoint would mean that 70 percent of Americans are impulsively hostile to freedom of religion and irrationally narrow-minded.
Could be. Or maybe a few of these folks believe the First Amendment features more than one clause. Even a newfound reverence for religious liberty on the left does not negate our right to protest and criticize the philosophical disposition of others. And applying public pressure in an effort to shut down a project is as American as protesting the arrival of a new Walmart. Religious institutions, as far as I can tell, are not exempted from these disputes.
In 2008, thousands of gay rights activists protested the Mormon temple in Westwood, Calif., for its role in passing Proposition 8 -- the ban on same-sex marriage. This grew into a national protest to undermine the influence of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- even though not every Mormon was involved.
I don't recall anti-Mormon protesters being referred to as bigots for targeting religion; it appeared to be just the opposite, in fact. And if I am offended by aspects of Mormon theology, why not voice those concerns? Put it this way: If Mormons proposed the erection of a 13-story community center in West Hollywood or the West Village, I would be happy to join the outcry of protest.
Though only a fraction of Catholic priests are pedophiles, the entire Roman Catholic Church is routinely broad-brushed as corrupt and depraved. I've not heard those who make generalizations about Catholicism referred to as bigots in Time magazine. Nor have I heard those who regularly disparage evangelicals called intolerant.
These groups inject themselves into political and cultural disputes of the day -- as they have every right to do -- so they become fair game. And by building the Islamic center near ground zero, the backers of Park51 insert themselves in a broader political conversation.
As a person with a libertarian political temperament, I would loathe to see government shut down religious expression. As an atheist, I am distrustful of religion's influence on that freedom. But in the end, one is a discussion about the role of government in society and the other is a discussion about civilization. Few people in this debate make that distinction.
As we know, only a fraction of Muslims are radicalized to violence. Most Muslims are peaceful -- free to practice their religion unencumbered. All of this is indisputable. Prospectively speaking, unlike many other faiths, ideological Islam has a poor track record of compatibility with liberal ideals. Surely, that's worth a discussion in a free society. Or is it a case of intolerance to bring it up?
I've read numerous columns claiming that "allowing" a mosque to be built near ground zero is proof of our tolerant goodness. To be certain. But surely our ability to conduct a peaceful debate over the meaning of institutions, including religious ones, is also a reflection of that greatness.
Reach columnist David Harsanyi at dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
Read this article on RCP here: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/08/18/why_is_it_bigoted_to_criticize_religion_106797.html
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August 18, 2010
Why Is It 'Bigoted' to Criticize Religion?
By David Harsanyi
When it comes to the proposed Islamic center near ground zero, I subscribe to President Barack Obama's position: "Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country."
But that's old news. Today the debate is the debate. And this debate is far more consequential.
There are those who continue to make the facile claim that any protest over Park51 is a display in un-American intolerance and contempt for the Constitution. This position treats criticism of faith -- religious institutions and symbols included -- as tantamount to "bigotry."
Given that there remains overwhelming opposition to the ground zero mosque, this viewpoint would mean that 70 percent of Americans are impulsively hostile to freedom of religion and irrationally narrow-minded.
Could be. Or maybe a few of these folks believe the First Amendment features more than one clause. Even a newfound reverence for religious liberty on the left does not negate our right to protest and criticize the philosophical disposition of others. And applying public pressure in an effort to shut down a project is as American as protesting the arrival of a new Walmart. Religious institutions, as far as I can tell, are not exempted from these disputes.
In 2008, thousands of gay rights activists protested the Mormon temple in Westwood, Calif., for its role in passing Proposition 8 -- the ban on same-sex marriage. This grew into a national protest to undermine the influence of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- even though not every Mormon was involved.
I don't recall anti-Mormon protesters being referred to as bigots for targeting religion; it appeared to be just the opposite, in fact. And if I am offended by aspects of Mormon theology, why not voice those concerns? Put it this way: If Mormons proposed the erection of a 13-story community center in West Hollywood or the West Village, I would be happy to join the outcry of protest.
Though only a fraction of Catholic priests are pedophiles, the entire Roman Catholic Church is routinely broad-brushed as corrupt and depraved. I've not heard those who make generalizations about Catholicism referred to as bigots in Time magazine. Nor have I heard those who regularly disparage evangelicals called intolerant.
These groups inject themselves into political and cultural disputes of the day -- as they have every right to do -- so they become fair game. And by building the Islamic center near ground zero, the backers of Park51 insert themselves in a broader political conversation.
As a person with a libertarian political temperament, I would loathe to see government shut down religious expression. As an atheist, I am distrustful of religion's influence on that freedom. But in the end, one is a discussion about the role of government in society and the other is a discussion about civilization. Few people in this debate make that distinction.
As we know, only a fraction of Muslims are radicalized to violence. Most Muslims are peaceful -- free to practice their religion unencumbered. All of this is indisputable. Prospectively speaking, unlike many other faiths, ideological Islam has a poor track record of compatibility with liberal ideals. Surely, that's worth a discussion in a free society. Or is it a case of intolerance to bring it up?
I've read numerous columns claiming that "allowing" a mosque to be built near ground zero is proof of our tolerant goodness. To be certain. But surely our ability to conduct a peaceful debate over the meaning of institutions, including religious ones, is also a reflection of that greatness.
Reach columnist David Harsanyi at dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
Read this article on RCP here: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/08/18/why_is_it_bigoted_to_criticize_religion_106797.html
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