Freedom of Expression or Slavery under Islam?

Robert Spencer’s support for Harry’s (Dhimmi)  Place “unwanted and unneeded”

Dhimmitude is no defense: Hamas UK sues dhimmi blog

At the UK blog Harry’s Place, it is slowly dawning upon them that not just “Robert Spencer and his ilk” are responsible for people getting the idea that the Islamic concept of jihad may have something to do with terrorism. Somehow it seems to have escaped their notice — up until that item was posted in May 2008 — that Muslims are not committing acts of terror around the world because I told them to, but because they are able to explain and justify those acts of terror to peaceful Muslims by reference to the Islamic jihad theology that is embedded within the Qur’an, Sunnah, and rulings of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence (madhahib).

Over at Harry’s Place, however, they still think that “jihad is what you make of it,” as if words have no meaning and Islamic theology has no content — as if you could easily read The Brothers Karamazov as a cookbook or Mein Kampf as an adventure novel, or of course the Qur’an and Sunnah and rulings of all the madhahib as not counseling warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers. And they approvingly quote the mendacious Sheila Musaji as an authority for all this. Now they have been appropriately rewarded for their cluelessness and dhimmitude: Harry’s Place is being sued by a jihadist.

Details here.

Even  (proudly)  clueless dhimmis have the right to free speech, and if it is curtailed for them, it is curtailed for everyone. Thus Harry’s Place deserves the support of all free people.

UPDATE: With customary graciousness, Harry’s Place says our support is “unwanted and unneeded” — without, of course, specifying anything we say or have ever said about Islamic jihad as inaccurate, and tarring us with the familiar “Islamophobia” brush that jihad propagandists and their witless dupes (like Harry) wield against anyone who speaks accurately about the elements of Islam that jihadists use to incite violence. Harry asks if being a clueless dhimmi is a “bad thing.” Yes, Harry, it is, and the fact that you don’t know why is only the beginning of your troubles.

Ingrid Mattson vs. Freedom of Speech

by Robert Spencer

The idea that Wilders’ straightforward film against Islamic jihad terrorism constitutes a “racist and hateful” attack on the Muslim community echoes the statements of Islamic leaders worldwide, as they push for international restrictions on free speech. “In confronting the Danish cartoons and the Dutch film ‘Fitna’,” explained Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of Organization of the Islamic Conference, in June 2008, “we sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed. As we speak, the official West and its public opinion are all now well-aware of the sensitivities of these issues. They have also started to look seriously into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility, which should not be overlooked.”[7]

* Does the fact that the dominant media from the BBC to CNN, from The Guardian to The New York Times – those cowards that refuse to republish the twelve original Muhammad cartoons – have offended our religion, our traditions, our values in the past, mean that we now have to submit to a “deadly serious religion that answers insults with “action?”

The objective is to use “hate speech” laws to silence criticism of Islam and discussion of the elements of Islam that jihadists use to justify violence. The Daily Times of Pakistan reported that same month that “Pakistan will ask the European Union countries to amend laws regarding freedom of expression in order to prevent offensive incidents such as the printing of blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and the production of an anti-Islam film by a Dutch legislator.”[8]

Abdoulaye Wade, the President of Senegal and chairman of the OIC, said: “I don’t think freedom of expression should mean freedom from blasphemy. There can be no freedom without limits.”[9]

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, was ready to help. She said that legislators “should offer strong protective measures to all forms of freedom of expression, while at the same time enacting appropriate restrictions, as necessary, to protect the rights of others.”[10]

In characterizing Wilders and his film (sight unseen) as “hateful” and “racist,” Mattson was laying the groundwork for legal initiatives that would outlaw all honest discussion of the violent and supremacist elements of Islam, and essentially make Muslims into a protected class, beyond all criticism, precisely as her violent brethren are challenging the West as they have not done for centuries. Her superficially high-minded critique of Geert Wilders is actually a thinly-veiled expression of Islamic supremacism.