Rudyard Kipling"
āWhen you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldierā
General Douglas MacArthur"
āWe are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.ā
āIt is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.ā āOld soldiers never die; they just fade away.
āThe soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.ā
āMay God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .ā āThe object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
āNobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
āIt is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
An Orwellian assault on free speech by Clifford D. May
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Itās funny, in an Orwellian way, that in Europe there are now militant groups with such cutesy names as Sharia4Belgium and Sharia4Holland. Less funny, but perhaps more Orwellian, is this:
Last month, the European Foundation for Democracy (EFD) held an event in Amsterdam featuring two speakers who favor liberalizing Islam. More than 20 members of these pro-sharia groups pushed their way in shouting āAllahu akbar!ā They demanded the event be stopped, called the speakers apostates, spat on them, threw eggs at them, and threatened to kill them. Proud of these actions and apparently not overly concerned with legal consequences, they even made a YouTube videoof their āprotest.āNow hereās the least funny and most Orwellian part: Very few Europeans ā very few journalists, politicians, members of the self-proclaimed Human Rights community, or Muslim organizations claiming to be moderate ā have expressed outrage over this boot-stomping suppression of free speech in a city, country, and continent that claim to value freedom and tolerance. Imagine if the situation had been slightly different ā if, say, a Muslim Brotherhood event had been violently disrupted by spitting, egg-throwing, death-threatening Christians or Jews.
Roberta Bonazzi, EFDās Italian-born executive director ā a friend and colleague of mine ā bravely vowed not to be silenced. āWe are united and will continue to support inspirational Muslim reformers across Europe,ā she said. The speakers she had attempted to feature also kept a stiff upper lip. Irshad Manji, Canadian author of The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslimās Call for Reform in Her Faith, said that she and Dutch parliamentarian Tofik Dibi had ārefused to leave, even when police asked. We wouldnāt play on jihadi terms.ā Dibi, of the Green-Left party (and of Moroccan descent), said āthe disruption shows that even in the Netherlands it is necessary to continue the debate on reforming Islam.ā
Necessary, yes; safe, no. In Europe, increasingly, free speech ends where Islam, Islamism, and even Islamic terrorism begin. Two months ago, the Paris offices of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo were firebombed and its staff targeted with death threats after publication of an issue āeditedā by the prophet Mohammad.
In 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered on an Amsterdam street: He had directed a film about the treatment of women in Islamic societies. The filmās author, Somali-born Dutch parliamentarian and writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali, also was subjected to death threats. She subsequently fled to America.
In 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a dozen cartoons satirizing terrorism in the name of Islam. That led to protests, riots, death threats, an assassination plot, and the bombing of the Danish embassy in Pakistan.
All of this continues a trend begun more than a generation ago: In 1989, Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered any Muslim willing and able to murder British author Salman Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses Khomeini deemed blasphemous. Rushdie has required body guards ever since.
Had he been resident in any of the more than 50 states that hold membership in the Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (formerly called the Organization of the Islamic Conference but the new name is so much friendlier), that probably would not have saved him. Last year, Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Pakistanās Punjab province, defended a Christian woman sentenced to death under Pakistanās blasphemy law for having said something some Muslims found offensive. One of Taseerās own bodyguards shot him 27 times with an MP5 sub-machine gun. Many Pakistani clerics and religious scholars praised the killer and prohibited praying at Taseerās funeral.
Not a single OIC member state seriously guarantees freedom of speech. Some, notably Saudi Arabia, also actively prohibit freedom of worship. Nevertheless, in association with the OIC, the U.S. State Department last month hosted, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended, a three-day, closed-door international conference in Washington on combating religious āintolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization.ā
Behind those closed doors, the conference reinforced the OIC tenet that all religions are equal ā though one is more equal than others. OIC members are concerned only about the ādefamationā of Islam and, evidently, they do not view militant Muslims attacking reformist Muslims as defaming their faith.
Nina Shea, who serves on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, was able to attend parts of the conference. She argued that the Obama administration āerredā in portraying it as āas a meeting of minds between the OIC and America on freedoms of religion and speech.ā On the contrary, the conference āimmediately reignited OIC demands for the West to punish anti-Islamic speechā as Saudi clerics and Iranian mullahs interpret that term.
Shea noted, too, that speakers at the conference āgave a sweeping overview of American founding principles on religious freedom and how they have been breached time and again in American history by attacks against a broad variety of religious minority groups ā including now against Muslims.ā The audience was reassured that āthe Obama administration is working diligently to prosecute American Islamophobes and is transforming the U.S. Justice Department into the conscience of the nation, though it could no doubt learn a thing or two from the assembled delegates.ā
From which delegates exactly? The Saudis whose school textbooks describe Jews as apes and Christians as swine? Or those of the European Union, which, in response to the violence incited over the Danish cartoons, has mandated religious hate-speech codes that shield Islamic militants from criticism but, as the attack against EFDās speakers illustrates, do little to protect the rights of liberal Muslims, much less of non-Muslims?
Will the day come when Europeans and Americans again stand up on their hind legs and defend their freedoms, values, and traditions? Or have we effectively given up the fight in an attempt to appease such groups as the OIC and Sharia4Belgium? If only Orwell were still with us: I bet heād have some pungent answers to these questions.
ā Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.