Over the last few months I’ve made a habit of fisking the articles and pronouncements that emerge from the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a collection of Islamic nations that form what might be called the “Muslim UN”.

Since it wields considerable power as a bloc, the OIC has become increasingly influential in the UN itself, and has successfully inserted many elements of its program into General Assembly resolutions. These in turn tend to spread to the EU and individual nations of the West, and serve as models for “anti-Islamophobia” legislation to be used against citizens who object to Islamization. The laws that were used to persecute Ezra Levant, Bart Debie, Jiri Keronen, Dahn Pettersson, Lionheart, and Gregorius Nekschot were in perfect alignment with the models proposed by the OIC in the UN and elsewhere.

As far as suppression of speech is concerned, those countries which possess constitutional provisions protecting free speech don’t seem to fare any better than those which lack them. When the time comes to combat “racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia”, constitutions tend to get tossed aside. Once the Messiah is installed in the United States, it will presumably be our turn to do likewise.

The OIC has a ten-year plan to eradicate Islamophobia everywhere it appears. It has set up a special organization called the Islamophobia Observatory, whose purpose is to monitor Islamophobia throughout the world and report back to the OIC on perceived instances of it, as well as on the progress made towards stamping it out.

The ten-year plan started a year or two ago, so we may assume that the OIC expects to reach its goal at about the same time that President Obama finishes up his second term. By then, to aid the anti-Islamophobia crusade, much of the West will have voluntarily imposed — with the help of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc. — censorship on the internet and in the media. The Islamization of Europe will be well along, with parallel sharia legal systems in place in several countries. Popular dissent will be squashed by any means necessary.

If, that is, all goes according to plan.

So it’s a good idea for us to keep an eye on the OIC, the beating heart of international Islamic cooperative endeavors.

The current Secretary-General of the OIC is Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, and since he is peripatetic and verbose, fisking the OIC often means fisking Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu. Recently Prof. Ihsanoglu journeyed to the very belly of the beast and spoke in Copenhagen, the home of the infamously blasphemous Motoons. The Secretary-General was anxious to build bridges to the Danes and help them see the error of their ways — but in a friendly, constructive, Multicultural manner, of course.

Below are some excerpts from Prof. Ihsanoglu’s speech on October 22nd in Copenhagen. I’ve bolded certain phrases that will be of interest to other Islamophobes:

The initiative taken by the Danish Government to host this Conference in Copenhagen is a constructive and visionary step. It is more so in the backdrop of the ramifications of the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) by a Danish newspaper in 2005.

I believe that the holding of this conference in Copenhagen will serve as an effort of confidence building on the part of the Danish government and Danish people towards dispelling the tension and mutual misunderstandings that were unfortunately created and since then snowballed into an amalgam of intractable divisions and diplomatic confrontations in various international fora particularly between the European Union and OIC member states.

On its part, the OIC General Secretariat, by actively participating in the preparation process and supporting the organization of this conference, has aimed to emphasize its dedication to foster dialogue and political engagement in order to create much-needed grounds to strengthen the efforts to advocate peace and moderation.

We certainly expect that the Copenhagen Conference would help in ushering a new phase in our collective efforts to promote intercultural and inter-religious understanding and constructive dialogue. The OIC’s decision to be a partner in this conference was largely influenced and envisioned by this expectation. It is our sincere hope that the deliberations and contributions of the reputed and distinguished scholars, politicians and professionals assembled here from Muslim and Western countries will contribute positively towards realizing this objective.

The Secretary-General uses a lot of nice words and expresses himself in a way that resonates with all the best feel-good Western Multicultural ideology.

But what does he (and the rest of the OIC) mean by “dispelling the tension and mutual misunderstandings”? Where does the tension lie? Who misunderstands whom, and in what way?
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If someone asserts that the tension between Islam and the rest of the world is caused by persistent and widespread violence by Muslims against non-Muslims, he is an Islamophobe. By definition.

Those who criticize Islam are Islamophobes, and Islamophobia is bad. It’s a form of racism, and racism must be eradicated. Therefore criticism of Islam is ruled off the table.

Tensions are caused by criticizing Islam. Those who criticize it demonstrate that they are misunderstanding it.

So when non-Muslims cease to criticize Islam, tension is eliminated and there is no more misunderstanding. It’s as simple as that.

That’s what Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu means when he utters these smooth and mellifluous phrases. This is what “intercultural and inter-religious understanding and constructive dialogue” is all about.

In practical terms, as was the case in Rabat Conference, our participation in this initiative as a co organizer is in line with the mandate given to the OIC General Secretariat by the leaders of the OIC member states with a view to countering the increasing trend of prejudice, misinformation, misrepresentation, stereotyping, discrimination and intolerance targeting Muslims and their religions through diminishing or eliminating sources of confrontation between the Western world and the Muslim world and through supporting intercultural and interfaith dialogue projects in cooperation with the international and regional organizations and Western countries.

Now we’ve gotten down to the meat of Prof. Ihsanoglu’s position: the mission of the OIC is to counter misinformation, stereotyping, discrimination, intolerance, etc. And the meaning of these terms will be defined by the OIC itself. Any input from non-Muslims who disagree with these definitions is of necessity Islamophobic, and may therefore be anathematized and disregarded.

In other words, as with so many interactions between Muslims and non-Muslims, tolerance ratchets in only one direction. We are intolerant. We are prejudiced. Westereotype Muslims.

Mention the vile portrayal of the Jews in the Muslim media, or the brutal treatment of women under Islam, or the shunning of Jews and Christians as required by the Koran, and that’s prima facie evidence of Islamophobia, and is not allowed. Such things have nothing to do with intolerance and discrimination, but are in fact further instances of the West’s ill-treatment of Muslims.

One thing you can say about the architects of the OIC’s strategy: they’re not stupid. This is a diabolically clever use of the West’s finest rhetoric against it. With all this magnificent politically correct folderol, we are hoist with our own petard.

And we have been so weakened by all these decades of Marxist-inspired self-loathing that none of our leaders has the guts to stand up and call these scoundrels out on what they’re doing.

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Prof. Ihsanoglu takes a lengthy detour through a lot of boilerplate about education, and then has this to say:

Education is the major source which cultivates values and attitudes that shape the perceptions of individuals, communities, nations and the world. It also informs and translates understanding into action and thus has a vital role in any cultural international dialogue, and in the management of cultural diversity.

How does he propose that we manage cultural diversity? What are the specifics of his program?

Since the context of this sentence is education, I can make a few educated guesses. Based on recent Muslim initiatives in Europe and North America, he means:

• The acceptance of hijab for girls in state schools.
• The application of halal standards to all food served in school.
• The separation of boys and girls in athletic activities.
• The teaching of Islamic “accomplishments” and the removal of Eurocentric materials from school curricula.

Just to name a few.

But he doesn’t mean that Christian theology will be taught in schools in Saudi Arabia or Algeria. He doesn’t mean that girls in Yemen can choose not to wear the veil. He doesn’t mean that Muslims can convert to another religion without fearing for their lives.

That’s not the management of cultural diversity. Asking for that is Islamophobia.

Another means leading to realizing a successful international dialogue is the promotion of active harmony between culture groups within nations and between nations.

Once again: “active harmony between culture groups” means that mosques, madrassas, and all other Islamic cultural preferences must be accepted in all parts of the West where Muslims reside. It doesn’t mean that Western ways will be accepted in Riyadh or Peshawar.

Not at all.

Education and intercultural dialogue holds deep implications for the well-being of all humanity and our planet. Hence there is an urgent need to coordinate cross cultural understanding and multi-cultural education policies emphasizing diversity, while being conscious of the gaps between theory and practice.

“An urgent need to coordinate cross-cultural understanding” requires non-Muslims to accept all Muslim demands. That’s what diversity is all about.

But Muslims are not required to display reciprocal understanding towards non-Muslims. Asking for that is another example of Islamophobia.

The Secretary-General has much more to say in a similar vein, but I’ll skip a good deal of it. Those who are interested can visit the OIC transcript and read it all for themselves.

Eventually Prof. Ihsanoglu gets around to the real point of his speech, which is to warn the Danes against any repetition of their Prophet-insulting tendencies:

In today’s globalized world there is an urgent need to shun misperceptions and incitement of hatred and intolerance among peoples of diverse religious and cultural beliefs and background. In this regard, we should emphasize that in exercising the fundamental right of freedom of expression, one should act within the responsibility inherent in this freedom, through showing respect to the rights of others, andrefraining from incitement for hatred, causing hurt to others or eroding their basic human right.

The right of freedom of expression is not so fundamental that it allows people to draw cartoons or engage of other forms of expression that incite hatred. What about the editorial cartoons, as found in newspapers from Rabat to Jakarta, that depict Jews as vampires, cannibals, pigs, and serpents?

Since nobody in the OIC has objected to these, one must assume that they don’t incite anybody to hatred. Perhaps the hatred is already present, so that there’s no need to incite it.

In any case, only those forms of expression which insult Muslims can be considered incitement to hate. Pointing to the vile abuses of speech that are widespread among Muslims is a form of Islamophobia.

Prof. Ihsanoglu is at pains to emphasize that what he is asking for is drawn from the West’s own human rights laws. We have already sold him the rope, and now it’s time for us to ascend the steps to the gibbet:

As for the OIC, in our efforts in this regard, we are guided by the international human rights documents including the 1966 International Covenant on the Civil and Political Rights making it incumbent upon all governments to take action to take measures against incitement to religious hatred at the national level. I believe that taking this provision and other international legal instruments into consideration will help us in better understanding freedom of expression.

Let me clarify once more that the OIC has never had any problem with the freedom of expression, on the contrary we regard it as a fundamental value and advocate it in the Muslim World within our new vision. The point we have been making is that the abuse of this right, in a way to contradict and violate the international human rights documents, should not be allowed.

Having warned the Danes about the consequences of their sins, he now gives them a little pat on the head:

We have deep respect for the Danish society for being one of the forerunners in the defense of fundamental freedoms. We also acknowledge the capacity of this nation to contribute positively to the efforts to foster dialogue, tolerance and mutual understanding.

There, Vikings! Don’t you feel better now, knowing that you have the respect of Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu?

But what’s this? Is the good professor finally acknowledging that there are actualMuslim extremists?

We believe that we should not allow the extremists and opponents of diversity in both the Muslim world and the western societies to derail our joint endeavors and manipulate and exploit the interaction between the ones who are yearning for respect to their ethnic, racial and religious identities and values and the others who are misled to misperceive that their fundamental human rights of freedom of expression are challenged or under attack by the Islamic world. I believe that when we all strive for and cooperate to reach a consensus on this issue, the key words should be empathy, compassion, understanding, respect, human rights and international law.

Well, not really, because later he goes on to say this:

Some of the perpetrators of the terrorist acts might claim to commit these sinful crimes in the name of Islam. This pretension should not be validated as they have nothing to do with Islam, a religion of peace, compassion and tolerance.

You see, those thousands of murderous extremists who commit all these heinous crimes in the name of Allah are not in fact Muslims. How do we know that? Because they’re extremists!

No matter what they say about themselves, no matter how many times they ululate “Allahu Akhbar” and quote the Koran, they are by definition not Muslims. To maintain otherwise is Islamophobic.

Finally, I’d like to return your attention to this phrase: the ones who are yearning for respect to their ethnic, racial and religious identities.

Notice the little sleight-of-hand that’s at work here. The Secretary-General is smoothly eliding ethnicity, race, and religion, and treating them as a single entity. Objecting to the tenets of the Muslim religion is thus a form of racism, andIslamophobes are racists.

Q.E.D.

The “sin of racism” is the Trojan Horse of Western Civilization. We have rolled it into the city. The door is open, and the enemy is pouring out in our midst.

If we can’t rid ourselves of this idiotic shibboleth, then we are doomed.

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As a counterpoint to what Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu had to say, consider this news story from Indonesia. But don’t expect the Secretary-General to denounce it or even refer to it.

According to Asia News:

In Jakarta Christian Priests and Activists First Target of Islamic Terrorists by Mathias Hariyadi

Police spokesman reports that following the arrest of dangerous terrorists it is becoming evident that some groups are shifting strategy, focusing primarily on domestic targets, like Christians, in order, among other things, to prevent inter-faith dialogue.

Jakarta — Islamic terrorists are moving to a new strategy, opting for attacks against Christian clergymen and activists, targeting vital installations across the country instead of US interests, this according Police spokesman Inspector General Abubakar Nataprawira. Equally the threat of attacks linked to the November execution of three men sentenced for the October 2002 Bali bombings (pictured) remains high.

Inspector General Nataprawira spoke at a press conference, unveiling the results from investigations sparked by the arrest on 21 October in Kelapa Ganding (North Jakarta) of members of a new terror group called Tauhid Wal Jihad.

“They were planning attacks against Christian priests and peace activities involved in peace actions and interfaith activities against terrorism,” the inspector said.

As if we needed any further reminder: “interfaith activities” are not allowed in Muslim countries. They are only allowed in infidel territory, and then only long enough to make sure that Islam becomes ascendant.

Previous posts about Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu and the OIC: