Foreign Dispatches

Ever Heard About Hotel Islam?

You can check in, but you can never check out, not in Egypt, and not in that other bastion of "liberal" Islam called Malaysia either. I guess Egypt and Malaysia are "liberal" in that their governments simply refuse to officially acknowledge acts of apostasy, rather than actually carry out the punishment for the "offense" prescribed by Islam - so much for all the apologist talk about the Quran stipulating "no compulsion in religion" ...

Jezebel Reassessed

My attitude towards religion has long been identical to that held by Thomas Edison, but while I refuse to consider the claims to truth or insight made by any religion on its own behalf as more than so much nonsense, one thing I do recognize is that, to paraphrase Gershom Scholem, the study of religious nonsense can nevertheless be worthwhile. In particular, if one is willing to read the Bible with a critical cast of mind, considering it as the product of historical, human forces that it is rather than the revealed and inerrant truth that so many Jews and Christians consider the Bible to be, a great many insights into the past become accessible.

Kol Nidre

I actually discovered this video in the course of a search motivated by my lamentation about the dearth of decent pop music to suit baritones, but I was so impressed by the quality of the singing - especially that of the cantor - that I just had to share it.

That's some incredible melisma there, wouldn't you agree? The human voice sounds best when it isn't drowned out by orchestration, but is treated as a first-rate musical instrument in its own right - oh, and by the way, this is just one more example of how tenors seem to get all the best parts ...

The Arch-Dhimmi of Canterbury

One of the things I like most about the Anglican Church is its wishy-washy, "compromise at any cost" mentality, but as much as I like this tendency under most circumstances, I think it's taking things a bit too far when the Archbishop of Canterbury himself attempts to make the case for the introduction of Sharia law; even more ridiculous is that he should plead "shock" at the fact that most members of a tolerant and secular society should be outraged at the prospect of giving the force of legal backing to a barbaric and intolerant judicial code from the middle ages.

If Muslims "do not relate to the British legal system", then the answer for them is to learn how to do so or leave Britain for Saudi Arabia or some other such place more to their liking, not for the majority of Britons to have Sharia's barbarisms inflicted upon them in order to buy the loyalty of disgruntled Muslims. It isn't as if the United Kingdom is the Soviet Union, after all - one doesn't need an exit visa to leave the place. The idea of a single law to govern every citizen is one I consider a key plank of civilization, and even the attempt by the Archbishop to make use of the existence of courts for Orthodox Jews strikes me as utterly unconvincing: to the extent that such "courts" are permissible, it is only in the same manner that other private arbitrators should be, i.e. their judgments are binding only to the extent allowed by contract law and only given the voluntary participation of all parties to a case. Anyone who thinks this sort of "court" would suffice to buy off Islamists is living in a fantasy land.

PS: This well-reasoned post by a Muslim explains how even the Archdhimmi's supposedly "limited" vision for Sharia's place in the legal system would open up a Pandora's box.

Mitt Romney's Mormon Problem

Its only the first day of 2008 and already I find myself feeling weary of all the American politicking which is sure to dominate the global media throughout the other 365 days of the year, but while I have no intention to devote substantial attention to the US presidential primaries on an ongoing basis, there is one issue which has caught my attention, and that is the trouble Mitt Romney is having with parts of the Republican "base" due to his Mormonism.

Not Particularly Korean, but Very, Very Christian

You may have heard a thing or two by now about the Korean missionaries who went to Afghanistan in the face of repeated warnings from their government, only to end up being kidnapped by the Taliban, in whose hands they're currently being used as bargaining chips. By way of providing some background illumination, a guest contributor on the Marmot's gives his (her?) view on the nature of Korean Christianity, and based on this description I have to say it sounds very much like every other evangelical movement I've encountered in Africa, North America and in Europe: obnoxious in its recruiting zeal and obsessed with money and status markers both within and between rival organization groups. Modern day evangelicals don't have the murderously aggressive tendencies of that other proselytizing monotheism, but that isn't to say that they are anything less than nasty pieces of work in their own right: contemplating such groups one can only feel a deep sense of gratitude that the predominant religion in the United Kingdom is the lukewarm, lethargic and heavily compromised "Christianity" of the Anglican church, and luckier still are countries like Japan in which this particular form of religious madness was extirpated before it managed to take too firm a hold.

Poor Baby!

Will no one spare a thought for Abu Hamza al-Masri, victim of the big, bad bullies of Her Majesty's prison service?

The wife of Abu Hamza, the jailed Muslim cleric, has complained about her husband's treatment in a high-security London prison.

Hamza, 49, dubbed the "preacher of hate", is serving seven years for inciting the murder of non-Muslims.

No Virginia, This is not "Censorship"

I know it's inevitable that some would-be libertarian extremist or other trying to prove his or her (usually his) bona fides as a "real" libertarian will latch onto this news as evidence of British government "censorship", but for the record let me point out that whatever one thinks of the acceptability of chanting "Bomb, bomb the UK" and Annihilate those who insult Islam", these nutjobs were allowed to rant and rave freely on the day in question, unrestrained in any way by the police (and to the disgust of most onlookers): that their acts of incitement to terror and murder have led to their suffering unpleasant consequences does not mean they've been "censored" in any way, only that for the next few years they'll have to do their inciting from behind cell walls ...

License to Steal

When only Muslims are allowed to go about on the streets with their faces fully covered, criminals will pretend to be Muslims.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Two armed men disguised as Muslim women in burqas held up a bank in Sarajevo and got away with some $40,000, Bosnian police said on Tuesday.

They said the pair entered a Union bank branch in the capital wearing head-to-toe black dresses and veils typical of women adhering to the orthodox Islamic code and trained guns on customers. They then made customers lie on the floor while the emptied the tills, police added.

So far it's just crooks turning in their balaclavas for burqas (also see here), but it's only a matter of time before Europe-resident* terrorists latch on to the same technique, making a mockery of the very same CCTV technology that's recently proven so useful in nabbing the gang of death-dealing NHS doctors. Banning the burqa is about public safety, not rhetorical nonsense about what it may or may not symbolize: it's simply ridiculous that people should be allowed to go about in crowded publics with their faces completely concealed, all in the name of "tolerance" for one of the most intolerant of religions.

*Palestinians have been doing such things for years.

Veil of Darkness

There's an interesting article in today's New York Times about the peculiar upsurge in popularity of the niqab (aka burqa) amongst British Muslims.

LONDON, June 16 — Increasingly, Muslim women in Britain take their children to school and run errands covered head to toe in flowing black gowns that allow only a slit for their eyes. On a Sunday afternoon in Hyde Park, groups of black-clad Muslim women relaxed on the green baize lawn among the in-line skaters and badminton players.

Their appearance, like little else, has unnerved other Britons, testing the limits of tolerance here and fueling the debate over the role of Muslims in British life.