Saturday, October 31, 2009

Tarek Fatah says that Islam is the only religion bent on the destruction of Western civiliization


Here is a picture of Hillary Clinton in Pakistan. She came close to being the President of the United States and had to settle for Secretary of State. I guess one should not be surprised to see her in a hijab since her boss went so far as to bow to the King of Saudi Arabia.

But what is the message to Islamists when an important non-Muslim dons Muslim approved head gear?

Give up?

That Islam is winning, so keep up the pressure. Do we really need the top people in the government of the United States to lend such a helping hand to that project?

I went to a lecture last evening in Toronto. The speaker was Tarek Fatah, who I have described in other postings on this blog as Canada’s leading Muslim reformer. Perhaps I am being a bit sexist with that remark since Irshad Manji is also well-known for her views on the reformation of Islam and is probably better known internationally than Fatah. So let’s just say he is one of Canada’s leading reformers.

He is quite entertaining because he is passionate about his subject and he pulls no punches. At one point he said, “Let’s face it, racism can be fun, and we have to work hard at not appearing to be racist.” Not many folks in our fair land would be brave enough to say that publicly.

Fatah was talking about the reason why he wrote his book, Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, published in 2008. He claims to have proved through his research that the notion of establishing a global Islamic state is a fable that has harmed Islam for more than 1,000 years and is a distortion of Mohammed’s message. He says he was trying to reach out to young Muslims who are swayed by Islamists into the folds of the radical Islamist movement.

Among the interesting tidbits he dropped in his lecture was the fact that every mosque in the Toronto area obtains sizeable funding from Saudi Arabia. I had not heard that before, although so many other mosques around the world are funded by that source it should not be surprising to find that ours are no exception.

He also pointed out that Pakistan is the only country in the world that was created exclusively for Muslims. That is an interesting argument to keep in mind when one hears the cries against the legitimacy of creating Israel as a homeland for the Jews.

Fatah supports the initiative of the Muslim Canadian Congress to petition the federal government to ban the burka and the niqab. He makes no bones about the fact that these garments are designed to marginalize women and have little to do with piety.

With a good deal of sarcasm he told of the post 9/11 visit by Canada’s top politicians to an Ottawa mosque to comfort Muslims in their hour of peril. One of the visitors was Alexa McDonough, who was then the leader of the federal NDP. The old, bearded Imam, who carried a walking stick, greeted them at the entrance and proceeded to rap her on her foot with it, and told her that her footwear was offensive as her toes were showing. He ordered her to go to the basement where all the women went. She complied.

Fatah says this is symbolic of what is wrong with our attitude to Islam (meaning non-Muslim attitudes). He said McDonough’s response ought to have been to slap the Imam in the face and lecture him on the perils of assaulting women.

He summarized the three great problems with Islam that need to be overcome: suppression of women, hostility to homosexuals and treatment of apostasy.

I would have added supremacy to that list.

2 comments:

Michael Lonie said...

The Reformation of Islam is happening now. The Wahhabis are reforming it in the image of their narrow-minded, bigoted, fanatical sect. What the Muslims, and the rest of us, need is an Islamic Enlightenment.

hockey hound said...

Tarek Fatah is a sophist. You need to continue reading. Your heart is in the right place, only you're being deceived by sycophants like Tarek Fatah.