It’s a conversation that has been made necessary because as a nation we’re conflicted, to use a popular term, about the religion founded by Mohammad. But the conversation needs to get beyond simplistic, kneejerk allegations of Islamophobia, and it needs to unpick some contradictions and inconsistences in how we view Muslims.
First, some background. There have been Muslims in New Zealand since the late 19th century. Most of those early arrivals came from South Asia (mainly India) and appear to have lived quietly without attracting public attention.
There was a surge in Muslim immigration during the 1970s and 80s, especially following the nationalist Fiji coup of 1987, which made life very uncomfortable for Fiji Indians of the Muslim faith. Political instability also resulted in the arrival of Muslim immigrants from Somalia and the Middle East.
All of this happened without controversy. So what changed?
With the rise of Al Qaeda and the terrorist attacks on New York in 2001, a militant form of Islam emerged which was seen as an existential threat to the West. Anxiety about Islamist extremism has since been ratcheted up by repeated terrorist massacres – many of them perpetrated by radicalised Muslim immigrants striking at the countries that took them in – and by appalling atrocities perpetrated by Islamic State and Afghanistan’s Taliban.
Islam, and Muslim immigration, thus became a highly political issue.
All this coincided with substantially increased Muslim immigration to New Zealand. At the time of the 2001 census, 23,631 New Zealand residents identified as Muslim. By last year, the number had jumped to 61,455.
Muslims still make up only 1.34 per cent of the population, half the number of New Zealand Hindus, but they are highly visible and some are politically active – more so since the Christchurch mosque massacres of March 15.
As the spontaneous public reaction showed, New Zealanders were shocked and appalled by that incident and deplored the perpetrator.
The killer did not represent New Zealanders, most of whom feel nothing but goodwill toward Muslims who come here with the aim of living peaceably and contributing to their community.
That goodwill is plainly reciprocated by the many Muslim New Zealanders who, since March 15, have publicly expressed their appreciation of this country and their feeling of being welcome and accepted here.
But here’s where things get tricky. The events of March 15 have been seized by some people, not all of them Muslim, as an opportunity to promote the idea that Muslims are the victims of hatred and discrimination.
This notion is used in turn to politicise the Islamic faith and lobby for treatment not extended to other religions – for instance, seeking women-only days at public swimming pools so that men can’t see women’s bodies, or the provision of prayer rooms in public spaces.
No reasonable person would challenge Muslims’ right to follow their religion without harassment, but nothing is more likely to provoke resistance than the perception that a religious denomination is being singled out for privileged treatment. New Zealand is a secular society and no exceptions should be made.
We must also reserve the right to criticise those aspects of Islam that sit awkwardly with secular liberalism, just as we’re free to mock Christian beliefs. This is not incompatible with respect for the right of Muslims to follow their faith.
Post-March 15, however, there was an outpouring of misconceived liberal guilt that manifested itself in bizarre ways, such as the furore over the name of the Crusaders rugby team. This fuss conveniently overlooked that Muslims were invaders too, with a long history of bloody conquest that reached far into Europe on one side and India on the other.
Arguably the biggest challenge posed by Islam, though, is to the political Left, which must somehow reconcile its embrace of Islam with its promotion of rights for women and gays. Good luck with that, as they say, because the two are inherently incompatible.
What complicates the issue is that Islam is a broad church, ranging from tolerance and acceptance of difference at one end of the spectrum – i.e. the version of Islam that should be welcomed here – to unspeakable violence and repression at the other.
Why the Left champions Islam is no mystery. It’s because the Islamic world is seen as standing in opposition to the capitalist West, so must be supported.
But by railing against so-called Islamophobia without qualification, the Left lays itself open to the accusation that it turns a blind eye to the repression of women and the stoning of homosexuals. It's an exquisite ideological tangle, and the world waits with interest for the Left to declare exactly where it stands.
Karl du Fresne, a freelance journalist, is the
former editor of The Dominion newspaper. He blogs at karldufresne.blogspot.co.nz. First published in The Dominion Post and on Stuff.co.nz
5 comments:
Paragraph fourteen introduces an interesting comparison . " Nothing is more likely to promote resistance than the perception that a religious denomination is being singled out for privileged treatment".
If that is true, how is it that one sector of our society has been "singled out for privileged treatment" for decades but without noticeable resistance.
One has to look at how the religion was founded and spread by Mohammad, It was setup on good principals but with total male control, however it was spread by warfare and total submittion, become Muslim or die, thirty battles over a period of about nine years by Mohammad and continued by his son and stepfather for another many years where millions perished in the name of Islam, in all about sixty wars were fought to convert the people to Islam, hence a religion borne out of warfare and repression, not passion and careing.
What I wrote the day of the Christchurch mosque shootings.
Christchurch was a statistical anomaly. An aberration. An outlier.
Sri Lanka a few weeks later was back to business as usual for Islam.
PART 1
All whites cannot be smeared for the wrongful actions of one white male, just as all Muslims cannot be smeared for the wrongful actions of fellow-Muslims.
But we should not lose sight of the fact that there are two kinds of Muslims:
- "Cultural" Muslims, who are born into Islam, cherry-pick the nice parts, and don't act out on the nasty parts. They are practising what we might call “passive Islam” and are not at war with non-Muslims.
- "Religious" Muslims, who believe they have a theological obligation to make Islam supreme over all other religious and political systems. They are practising what we might call “active Islam” and are most certainly at war with us.
For convenience, let’s call the second group, "Islamists."
The West's problem is that a "cultural" Muslim can decide at any time to self-activate as an Islamist. This means every resident Muslim is just one imam and a desire for a closer religious commitment away from becoming a jihadist.
Let’s hear from arrested Australian Islamist, Ibrahim Abbas:
"I began to re-evaluate my belief in Allah and I began to believe in Allah again, and then thereafter I became religious and started to seek knowledge, familiarise myself with the faith. I listened to scholars that would talk about the life of the Prophet. I’d read books, attend lectures, go to the mosque, have discussions with people about the Islamic religion... I believed it was obligatory upon me to eventually commit an act of terror."
My reading of Islamic scripture suggests the Islamists are theologically correct. They certainly believe that they are.
There are nice Muslims, but there’s no such thing as a "nice" Islam. Anything in Islam about religious tolerance towards non-Muslims comes from early in Muhammad’s prophethood [sic] when he was still trying to win converts by dawa ("outreach").
Once he had thousands of armed men riding behind him, Muhammad changed Islam to reflect his new-found power. His followers were now called upon to fight aggressive jihad and spread Islam by armed force.
Since Islam holds that the Koran is the absolute, revealed word of Allah, everything in it is "true." Contradictions between early, peaceful suras (verses) and later suras telling Muslims to fight non-Muslims for religious and political supremacy are resolved in Islamic jurisprudence by making the revelations situational.
Following the example and instructions of Muhammad, Islamists present as peaceful when their numbers are small, but only because this phase of battlefield preparation is best-accomplished by "making nice." They operate under a “religion of peace” public relations strategy until powerful enough to flex their muscles and kill.
Those peddling this line selectively quote Koran 2: 256: "There is no compulsion in religion" and Koran 25: 63: “The worshippers of the All-Merciful [Allah] are those who tread the earth gently and, when the ignorant speak to them, they reply ‘Peace.’”
These are suras of the early period, when Mohammed was living in Mecca, had a mere handful of followers, and was still trying to win converts by persuasion. His subsequent revelations after the Hijrah (“migration”) to Medina make it clear Islam was only "peaceful" when Muhammad didn’t have the numbers.
Earlier suras about being nice to non-Muslims are struck out or overwritten by Muhammad’s later revelations. This Muhammad taught at Koran 2: 105: “Whatever verses we [Allah] cancel or cause you to forget, we bring a better or its like."
Muslims call this “naskh,” usually translated as “abrogation.”
PART 2
Once Muslims are strong and numerous, they have a theological obligation to wage war on non-Muslims, as set out in Koran 47:35: “So do not weaken and call for peace while you are superior; and Allah is with you and will never deprive you of [the reward of] your deeds.”
Here’s a few of the later revelations:
Bukhari: V1B2N25: “Allah’s Apostle was asked, ‘What is the best deed?’ He replied, ‘To believe in Allah and His Apostle Muhammad.’ The questioner then asked, ‘What is the next best in goodness?’ He replied, ‘To participate in Jihad, religious fighting in Allah's Cause.’”
Koran 8:39: "Fight them [non-Muslims] till all opposition ends and the only religion is Islam."
Koran 9: 5: “Fight and kill the unbelievers wherever ye shall find them.”
Koran 47.4: "When you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads."
Koran 4: 95 excuses Muslims whose circumstances (age, gender, infirmity) mean they can’t actively engage in Jihad, though they still have a duty to fund it. Jihadists, however, are accorded the greater status: “Allah has granted a rank higher to those who strive hard, fighting Jihad with their wealth and bodies to those who sit (at home). Unto each has Allah promised good, but He prefers Jihadists who strive hard and fight above those who sit home. He has distinguished his fighters with a huge reward.”
The more devout, the more passionately committed a Muslim is to Islam, the more he comes into alignment with Islam’s inherent extremism. While we keep telling ourselves what Islam means, Muslims keep showing us what Islam means. Islam is teaching us every day about what it actually is through the behaviour of its most devout followers.
While Muslims in NZ have suffered a disgusting and deplorable attack in their places of worship, their co-religionists elsewhere in a position to act out on their religion are doing exactly the same thing to non-Muslims, one-thousandfold.
The Christchurch mosque shootings are of enormous assistance to local Islamists, operating to reduce the mainstream's sense of threat; allowing Islamists and their dupes to paint Muslims as victims rather than the aggressive challengers the evidence of other jurisdictions confirms they will morph into once strong and numerous enough to act out on their religion.
Local Muslims are – for now – at the polite end of the Muslim spectrum. But once Islam attains a critical mass, expect a significant number will follow the commandments of their religion to self-segregate and wage aggressive jihad to advance Islam.
Speaking on the date of the Christchurch mosque shootings, controversial Australian senator, Fraser Anning, reminds us: "While Muslims may have been the victims today, usually they are the perpetrators."
With the first Islamist terror attack on NZ soil, we will see the true face of Islam.
According to thereligiofpeace website there have been more than 36, 030 Islamist terrorist attacks since 9/11 and counting.
In 2019 to date, there were 1635 Islamic attacks in 52 countries, in which 8922 people were killed and 9972 injured.
ENDS
I read this a couple of times and Perhaps Mr Du Frense is not particularly conversant with Islam.
For a start the basic understanding that it is a religion is wrong. Islam and it's method of controlling the adherents ,Sharia , Is in fact a political ideology .
Islamic law is absolutely incompatible with true democracy. It is a theocratic system with Allah alone at its head. Allah's law is interpreted by a ruling body of clerics. There is no room for a secular political system in which all people are treated as equals.
Anyone who cares to can obtain an english copy of the koran through any mosque. Simply go to one and ask. Because it is given to you at the mosque there is no argument about translation etc.as I have outlined some verses out the 101 which show the true nature of islam in the koran.
So this brings us to the Question of Islam in New Zealand. I can understand the mozlims who went to NZ after the Fijians grew tired of them. ( it took me a few years to understand why mainland Indians I know didn't like Fiji indians)
But why would somalis, and others migrate to NZ? It's not to escape oppression or war because experience shows us that Somalis Sudanese etc go home every year for holidays. Syrians are now doing the same.
Most of my londoner ancestors were Huguenot Refugees,the very group of people who the word was coined for. None of them would return to France,for fear of death at the hands of catholics.I also know plenty of veitnamese who feel the same way still .
What is actually happening is the koranic emigration, as a tactic of invasion as All Mozlims are instructed to do in the koran at 2:216 and 2:218 . To disguise the true intention of this migratory wave,they are encouraged to lie about it.The word to describe this lying is called Taqiyya.
So,Sure mozlims can be friendly,because again the koran encourages the adherents to pretend to like the Kuffar, the non believer, Another name they use is harbie.*
But the aim is to infiltrate society,even get elected to positions in government .
Ilhan Omar in the US congress is a perfect example. her outspoken hatred for the USA is well known .
Once the population of mozlims reaches a certain percentage,the push begins to take control of the political process . It is at this point another Koranic verse is used as a reason for oppression ,this being 9:29.
As we saw in Syria, this involves killing anyone who refuses to become a mozlim .
Actually the belief held by islam is that all are born islamic, but our parents stole us from Islam so we do not in fact convert,we Revert. And if we revert to islam we may not have to pay the tax imposed on all kuffar, the jizya. I say"may not" because it doesn't necessarily guarantee safety from abuse if you convert. they will often call such people Dhimmi, and that is Jacinda Adearn and a lot of the press around the globe. Dhimmi, the useful idiots.
NZ is at that point right now where people can be educated to evils of the creeping Sharia or they can ignore it's pernicious growth ,all the while believing the grand lie started GW Bush that islam is 'religion of peace'and eventually join all of those nations which were once Christian or Secular but now suffer under the oppressive rule of the sharia.
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