"Lipstick Lesbian" Rips OBL, Radical Imams

Osama bin Ladin and a lipstick lesbian in the same story. Honestly, I'd have to link it even if it wasn't very good. But it is pretty interesting:

No wonder Irshad Manji has received death threats since appearing on British television: she is a lipstick lesbian, a Muslim and scourge of Islamic leaders, whom she accuses of making excuses about the terror attacks on London. Oh, and she tells ordinary Muslims to “crawl out of their narcissistic shell�. Ouch.

Manji is a glamorous Canadian television presenter whose book, The Trouble with Islam, has made her so famous in America that she won something called the Oprah Winfrey Chutzpah award. Even at a conference in Oxford last week she felt unsafe — despite extra security — with police sifting through “disgusting e-mails� and threats after her appearance on Newsnight.

Doesn’t the violent Muslim minority show Islam is flawed? “I ask myself the same question,� she grimaces. Far from regarding Muslims as oppressed they have a “supremacy complex — and that’s dangerous�. This, she contends, is true even among moderates. “Literalists� who consider the Koran the “perfect manifesto of God� have taken over the mainstream; and far from misreading Islam, as Tony Blair and the Muslim Council of Britain insist, terrorists can find encouragement for murder in the Koran.

Perfect point. One sad irony I've noticed is that Muslim terror-apologists have two main talking points: 1) the US is "arrogant," and 2) "What you don't understand is..."

I've heard "What you don't understand is..." so many times I could vomit. I'm tired of people simultaneously calling me arrogant and then arrogantly explaining to me what I don't know (which, by the way, I've heard before; I just disagree).

A large part of this insanity is fueled by pathological chauvanism and pan-national cultural jingoism... but not on our side, on theirs. They really do believe they are fated to be the inheritors of the earth, and the fact that the US sits as the 400 pound gorilla in the room that won't give up the banana drives them nuts. They're supposed to be the Masters of the Universe; how can it be that infidels seem to be in that position?

As it would take too long to build up the Islamic world economically and technologically to take the world primacy Islamicists have wet dreams about it, they've decided to take a short-cut: just destroy the people, spirit, and economy of the West. They can't bring themselves up, but they have a chance of bringing us down.

All nations or cultures are infected with chauvanism or jingoism. As a proud American, I don't think that's a bad thing. I feel I have more in common with, say, a chauvanistic German than an American who doesn't like being an American and considers himself a "global citizen." The German and I can spar on whose culture or nation is superior (and I always have those three trump cards of Hitler, the Holocaust, and Dresden), whereas I can't say a damn thing to my nominally-American global citizen pal.

However, when one's racial/ethnic/religious jingoism starts taking the form of bombings and terrorism, you've taken it too far.

The underlying problem with Islam, observes Manji, is that far from spiritualising Arabia, it has been infected with the reactionary prejudices of the Middle East: “Colonialism is not the preserve of people with pink skin. What about Islamic imperialism? Eighty per cent of Muslims live outside the Arab world yet all Muslims must bow to Mecca.� Fresh thinking, she contends, is suppressed by ignorant imams; you can see why she has been dubbed “Osama’s worst nightmare �.

“The good news,� she insists, “is it doesn’t have to be like this.� She wants a reformation in Islam, returning it to its clever, fun-loving roots. “The world’s first ‘feminist’ was an 11th-century Muslim man. Baghdad had one of the first universities in the 9th century; the Spanish ‘Ole!’ comes from ‘Allah’; Islam even gave us the guitar.�

...

If we are at fault for not encouraging Muslims, they fail to “celebrate the precious gift� of British freedom: “Why do they protest against France for making it illegal to wear hijabs, but not against Saudi Arabia for making it illegal not to wear them?�; more Muslims, she contends, have been killed in recent years by fellow Muslims than by westerners.

...

She excuses Blair glossing over violent aspects of Islam as “he is only trying to divert a backlash against Muslims, bless him� but she despises the Muslim Council for not coming clean. “Even if Muslims are only interested in slick PR, it would be a great move to recognise the problem; it would spread trust. And I am not asking them to do anything Jews and Christians haven’t done.�

....

She denounces terrorism and the response to terrorism, which is not sufficiently robust. It is no good, she argues, for respectable Muslims to say “violence is not the Islamic ideal� if violence has become Islamic practice. And she attacks the proposed religious hatred laws, saying: “Society needs people who offend, otherwise there will be no progress.�

Indeed. But can Manji and her followers provoke Muslims into progress?

I say "Yes."

Lipstick lesbians. Is there anything they can't do?

posted by Ace at 02:38 PM

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