They call it leftist hypocrisy. I call it cowardice. Plain cowardice.

Satire has been a sanctuary historically monopolized by progressives, originally used as a discreet tool against Western religious fundamentalism. Of course, an authentic Muslim should not dress well, speak lucidly nor drink, of all things, a skinny flat white coffee. The real Muslim is scruffy. A credible Muslim can only be inarticulate, someone who requires an intermediary to ‘explain’ their anger, invariably through the prism of leftist ideological dogma. And if a Muslim does speaks for themselves, they must only do so when full of rage, obviously.

How patronizing.

As another blogger accurately noted in response, the problem begins when journalists and others seek out “community representatives,” or “credible Muslim voices” to fit into convenient boxes. This relies on so many assumptions that it is hard to know where to begin. Not all Muslims wish to express themselves in public through a communal religious identity. Identities are multiple, and some may wish to speak instead just as citizens in their professional capacity, through their political party, or their neighborhood body. Those Muslim who do speak through their communal religious identity are not homogenous. This particularly holds true because majoritarian Islam has no organized clergy, and no pope. The question of religious “representation” becomes particularly difficult to achieve as a result. And in its most extreme sense it is undesirable anyway, leading logically to nothing but ISIS-style bloodshed and theocracy. Muslim “credibility” is just as flimsy an idea to pursue doggedly. In fact, this is nothing but a variant of the African-American “not black enough” theme. Who decides whose “Muslim experience” is real, and whose is not? Is the credible Muslim only he who dresses in Arab robes, eats spicy food and drinks cava? And yet we then worry about profiling?

The great irony is that, unlike many of today’s champagne socialists and shisha-jihadists my entire life has been a prototype of their archetypal aggrieved Muslim. Unlike the Guardian’s private school, Oxbridge-educated journalist David Shariatmadari, I am a state school-educated Muslim and racial minority. I have been stabbed at by neo-Nazis, falsely arrested at gunpoint by Essex police, expelled from college, divorced, estranged from my child, and tortured in Egyptian prison, and mandatorily profiled. I’ve had my DNA forcibly taken at Heathrow Airport under Schedule 7 Laws, which deprive terror suspects of the right to silence at UK ports of entry and exit, among much else. I’ve been blacklisted from other countries. I am every grievance regressive leftists traditionally harp on. Yet their first-world bourgeois brains seem to malfunction because I refuse to spew theocratic hate, or fit their little “angry Muslim” box. Yet they talk to me about privilege, and non-fat lattes?

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The British Left’s Hypocritical Embrace of Islamism – The Daily Beast.

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From Diyarbikkir to Lalish: Walking in the Footsteps of Genocide

“That evening, I found myself exhausted both physically and mentally. But there was one place I still had to visit, an old pedestrian bridge that I describe in my novel.  I thought I would spend some quiet time there, but a wedding was being celebrated on the bridge’s top. The ten- arched bridge, “On Guzlu Copry,” was built by the bishop of Diyarbakkir, Yohanna Z’oro, late in the 4th century, so his parish could cross to the other bank of the Tigris and access the Church of 40 Martyrs. I found to my surprise — and dismay — that a plaque placed on the side of the bridge when it was renovated in 2010 claimed it as the first “Islamic” bridge in Anatolia!”

…learn, learn, learn…

ARABLIT & ARABLIT QUARTERLY

Iraqi novelist Layla Qasrany traveled to Turkey to commemorate the Armenian genocide and visit sites that had appeared in her most recent novel. A side-trip into northern Iraq, where she visited a Yazidi shrine, brought depressing and hopeful news of ISIS:

By Layla Qasrany

Diyarbakir, Turkey

Diarbakýr, Turkey Diarbakýr, Turkey

We say in Arabic that there are five benefits to travel. No one seems to know just what these are, but I derived many benefits from a trip I took recently. The journey began with my arrival in southern Turkey to attend the commemoration of the centennial of the Armenian genocide, in which we paid tribute to the million-plus souls deported from Diyarbakkir who consequently died in the desert of Syria.  One benefit was that I got to walk in the path of the caravan I depicted in my latest Arabic novel.

The first thing I did on the 23rd of April was…

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European Democracy must protect itself from its own suicidal naivety.

They haven’t understood a thing. The hundreds of thousands of patriots (that is what they call themselves), the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West ―PEGIDA―, haven’t understood a thing.

I mention them because they are the latest fashion in Germany where they have gathered tens of thousands of protestors in just a few months. But we could also be talking about France’s National Front or, simply, of the wave of comments you will find if you peek into any Spanish internet forum where the words ‘immigration’ or ‘Islam’ are mentioned.

Regrettably, those who rush to the street in counter-protests, normally backed (at least in statements) by the governments, demanding the respect, tolerance and acceptance of other cultures, have understood even less.

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Respecting the cannibals.

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(…) Because for Europeans, all Islam which is not directly assassinating is “moderate”. It can be as violent as it desires: predicate the mandatory veil for women, half-way or complete; say that women and men should not touch each other; that girls should not learn music; that being gay is bad for health; that all literary or humoristic work which questions the ‘sacred’ must be forbidden; that Koran laws are immutable, divine and must be above each country’s legislation…
An Islamic preacher can say all this and more and will be courted by ministers and presidents which will line up to debate with this ‘moderate Islam’ spokesperson. Many of these preachers would have been thrown into jail in Morocco or Syria for their hate-inspiring discourse, but Europe offered them not only asylum but a tribune, a debate, the position of president of the official Muslims council, the title of Honorary Gentleman and the Queens’ Order.

Yes: Europe has promoted, I don’t know if aware of it or blindly, but in an active and continuous way, a criminal way, the most extreme currents of Islam, financed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and their neighbors thanks to the oil tide. From the government elites to the last mayor, the imams, theologians and preachers have been raised to the rank of representatives of the collectives of Maghrebi, Turkish or Pakistani origins. A rank they never had in their countries of origin, a power which they could only acquire thanks to the complicity of European administrations. By a double path: electing them as representatives and by eliminating any alternative ways these collectives may have had for expressing themselves. (…)

I CAN ONLY AGREE.

The whole world says it: Turkey… J’accuse!

Is Turkey collaborating with the Islamic State (ISIS)? Allegations range from military cooperation and weapons transfers to logistical support, financial assistance, and the provision of medical services. It is also alleged that Turkey turned a blind eye to ISIS attacks against Kobani.President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu strongly deny complicity with ISIS. Erdogan visited the Council on Foreign Relations on September 22, 2014. He criticized “smear campaigns [and] attempts to distort perception about us.” Erdogan decried, “A systematic attack on Turkey’s international reputation, “complaining that “Turkey has been subject to very unjust and ill-intentioned news items from media organizations.” Erdogan posited: “My request from our friends in the United States is to make your assessment about Turkey by basing your information on objective sources.”Columbia University’s Program on Peace-building and Rights assigned a team of researchers in the United States, Europe, and Turkey to examine Turkish and international media, assessing the credibility of allegations. This report draws on a variety of international sources — The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, BBC, Sky News, as well as Turkish sources, CNN Turk, Hurriyet Daily News, Taraf, Cumhuriyet, and Radikal among others.

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Research Paper: ISIS-Turkey List | David L. Phillips.

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Turkey, ….and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, ….even US and Israel have allowed this evil to grow, in certain moments.

And the worst is Arabs and Muslims themselves doing nothing …because “it’s a CIA/Israeli creation” (¡¡¿¿??!!)

… damn myopic generation of spiritually retarded degenerates.

“Everywhere you see houses and churches on fire”

The year is 2015. It has now been exactly 100 years since the genocide took place. The perpetrators and most of the victims are gone. The Turks and Kurds of today are not the ones guilty of genocide but a process of reconciliation has not occurred.

Some Kurdish leaders and organizations have recognized Kurdish clans’ involvement in the massacre but from the Turkish side there is only silence. It hurts in your heart. But not only the cruel massacres and the holocaust on the Christians; not only did you see your entire family and your relatives killed, thousands of villages being emptied of its indigenous people and your entire history annihilated, but today they say that it never happened. It hurts within you. You can still feel the smell. The process of extermination against you is continued today, 100 years later.

Far from all Turks and Kurds were responsible for the massacre. There are examples of Turkish, Kurdish and Arab families who adopted children or protected persecuted, to save them from a sure death. There are documented cases where governors refused to follow government orders of the massacres. There are also examples of Kurds who protected Christian villages against other Kurds.

The night of April 24, 1915, the first phase of the genocide began when 250 Armenian doctors, lawyers, politicians, government officials, teachers, writers, poets and other intellectuals who could become the core of a future resistance, were arrested overnight and executed within 72 hours. Therefore April 24 is counted as the start of the genocide.

The genocide that destroyed over two million Christians and that emptied the Syriac village of Kerburan, twice. The night is still your friend. For the night is when you still hear your mother’s voice, calling your beautiful name.

The year is 2015, but a part of me died in 1915.

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Reliving the Armenian genocide: “Everywhere you see houses and churches on fire” – Your Middle East.

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Armenian women crucified by Kurdish clans in Deir-El-Zor, 1915… but at least they have acknowledged their role in the hell experienced by Armenians 100 years ago. 

A movie to remember why people dies crossing the Mediterranean to reach places where they’re not welcome…

This road movie portrays the perilous journey of well-known intellectual Yassin al-Haj Saleh and young photographer Ziad Homsi through Syria, at a time when the country edges towards the brink.

Yassin (53), who spent 16 years in prison for belonging to the Syrian left, goes underground in 2011 to serve Syria’s popular uprising, while Ziad (24) – occasionally fighting with the rebels – takes photographs in his hometown Douma. In this Damascene suburb – where Yassin and his wife Samira Khalil found shelter – the two men meet and become friends.

Together, they embark on an adventurous journey through the desert to al-Haj Saleh’s native town Raqqa in Northeast Syria. Upon their arrival, Raqqa is occupied by the “Islamic State in Iraq and Levant” (ISIS), which also kidnapped two brothers of Yassin.

Consequently, the thinker leaves for Istanbul to pursue his writing for the revolution, hoping for a reunion with his wife Samira who remained in Douma. Ziad – abducted by ISIS on his way back – rejoins Yassin after his release, hoping to return home soon. All hopes are shattered when Samira gets abducted jointly with human rights lawyer Razan Zeitouneh.

And the film ends while Syria tumbles into a yawning abyss.

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Our Terrible Country | Doc Alliance Films: Your online documentary cinema.

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This movie is full of pearls of knowledge and wisdom, all of them learnt sourly during these years of hell for Syria.

The most important of all…. Syrians’ main enemy is not Assad, it’s not Daesh… it’s no one from outside.

Their most terrible enemy is deeply rooted inside them.

And it will be like this for generations. 

Yazidi means “I was created”

Who are the Ezidis?

Many Kurds know the Ezidis as refugees, IDPs, even as devil worshippers – though mostly through biased media reports. Kawa wants to learn the truth about the people’s religion and daily life. In this ZLR episode Kawa goes to a Ezidi community in Lalesh, the main Yazidi temple complex in the KR. He meets a young man called Zaid, who shows Kawa various aspects of Ezidi life; from how they eat, to prayer in their temple, to who is protecting them from IS. Zaid and his family were on Mount Sinjar and along with others subjected to much horror and deprivation.

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Who are the Ezidis? – Middle East Alliance.

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Never stop learning, people… never. 

Ok… now this could be a respected, respectful caliphate!

Muhammad never nominated a successor (caliph) nor specified a method for identifying one, hence Islam does not prescribe, nor does it need a caliphate. In addition, the caliphate often led to instability due to the absence of clear rules for the transfer of power, and contributed to the absolutists attitudes the region’s leaders traditionally have to power.

In addition, the prophet never established an “Islamic state”. In fact, his rule of Medina was incredibly secular. Moreover, Islam’s greatest successes were achieved by rulers who were largely secular, especially when compared to their times.

In fact, it could be argued that the only truly Islamic state, is a spiritual state, a state of mind.

Contrary to what Islamists tell us, secularism is the solution – but I don’t mind if you call it a “caliphate”.

In fact, if you build a caliphate like this, I can guarantee you, judging by the interest on Twitter, that you’ll be drawing immigrants from all over the Muslim world.

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Memo To ISIS: A Successful Caliphate In Six Simple Steps – BuzzFeed News.

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As usual, Mr. Diab nailed it again!

Hijab for men… are imams paving the road for a He-jab?

Parallel with this is an international situation where many Muslims – rightly or wrongly – feel they are under siege from the west and respond to it, as a form of self-defence, through a re-assertion of supposedly traditional “Islamic values”. In reality, some of these values may not be as traditional as people imagine but they tend to be highly visible, and strict enforcement of male and female hijab is one of them.

In communities that feel themselves under threat, this might be called “solidarity hijab” – the sartorial equivalent of patriotic flag-waving – where anyone who doesn’t conform is regarded as betraying the cause.

A variation on this, and usually more voluntary in nature, is hijab as a way of asserting identity. It can be found in areas where Muslims form a minority, and so the niqab – a highly practical form of dress if you’re caught in a desert sandstorm – turns into a religious/political statement when worn on the streets of Britain. It happens in Muslim countries too, though. Saudi salafis, for example, use “indentity hijab” to distinguish themselves from other Muslims and in countries where political dissent is restricted styles of dress become an important way of expressing opposition to the government.

Despite the invocations of Islamic tradition, all this seems far removed from the original concept of hijab: that Muslims should simply assume a modest appearance. In extreme cases, it also reflects an extraordinarily superficial approach to religion where there’s more concern over a man who is “improperly” dressed than a one who takes bribes at work and beats his wife at home.

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Hijab for men | Comment is free | The Guardian.

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Really?… well… it’s not what is shown in the pic above (Made by Boushra Al-Muttawakil) but I am sure someone, sometime, thought:

“If we convinced women to get through this freely… why not trying it on men?”

Because control is everything ladies and sirs!

See, quite a rare bird: a Muslim Critic

It is my thesis that most of the problems of the Muslim world boil down to lack of criticism, self-criticism, which also means lack of imagination and creativity. And if we are to change things for the better, first of all we have to critically engage with the world. Even before we do that, we have to appreciate that we live in a diverse and pluralistic world, with different notions of truth. That means we have to learn to appreciate other notions of truth and look at them with respect and dignity, and realise that our claim — that we have the monopoly over sole truth — looks quite absurd to others.

At the same time, we have to look critically at ourselves, our worldview. A great deal of what we believe in is manufactured dogma. A lot of this was manufactured in history but sometimes in front of our eyes and justified with all sorts of Ahadees which have no basis in authenticity or our history. So criticism is essential. Critical Muslim is essentially about looking at Islam, Muslims and the world critically. We critique everything — the West, the Muslim societies, culture, science and technology. We believe that without thorough criticism, we cannot reach a true understanding of life and do something positive to change our societies.

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“Much of what we believe in is manufactured dogma”

 TNS – The News on Sunday.

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