SUICIDE OF THE WEST
WATCH -- DUTCH BISHOP BIDS CHRISTIANS PRAY TO ALLAH
GrassTopsUSA Exclusive Commentary
By Don Feder
08-27-07
Even for the Dutch
– tolerant to the point of national suicide -- it was a tad much.
Martinus “Tiny”
Muskens, Catholic bishop of Breda, told a television audience that Catholics
should pray to Allah, as a way to ease tensions with their Islamic neighbors.
“Allah is a very
beautiful word for God. Shouldn’t we all say that from now on we will name God
Allah?” asked the bishop who spent 8 years in Muslim Indonesia. (Our Allah who
art in heaven, hallowed be thy jihad?)
The Council on
American Islamic Relations (CAIR) thought the prelate’s proposal a capital idea.
“It reinforces the fact that Muslims, Christians and Jews worship the same God,”
CAIR Spokes-thug Ibrahim Hooper told FOXNews.com. Then, why don’t Muslims begin
praying in the name of Jesus, or use the Hebrew word Adonai (Lord) in their
prayers?
Just for a change,
why don’t Muslims do something to ease tensions? They fly planes into buildings,
kidnap and behead, assassinate, try to blow up airliners and spread the most
vile hatred imaginable – and it’s our job to reassure them.
“What does God
care what we call Him? It is our problem,” Muskens declared. Hooper agreed, “I
don’t think the name is as important as the belief in God and following God’s
moral principles.” If Hooper said that in Islamabad, Riyadh, or Cairo – he’d be
stoned to death by his ecumenically minded co-religionists. FYI: CAIR’s
adherence to “God’s moral principles” may be seen in its status as an
un-indicted co-conspirator in the federal trial of the Holy Land Foundation for
aiding Hamas, now in progress.
If there’s nothing
in a name, why didn’t Joshua order that on entering the Holy Land, the God of
Israel would henceforth be known as Baal, to facilitate relations with the
Canaanites? Why did Jesus instruct his disciples to pray in his name?
My friend Bill
Donohue, the tough-talking president of the Catholic League for Religious and
Civil Rights said the bishop “can pray to ‘Allah’ all he wants, but only
addlepated Catholics will follow his lead.”
A poll in De
Telegraaf, the largest paper in the Netherlands, found 92% of the Dutch
opposed to the bishop’s bootlicking.
The papers were
filled with comments like “Sure. Let’s call God Allah. Let’s call a church a
mosque.” Hollanders can also pray toward Mecca, dress their women in burquas and
beat them when they’re “disobedient.” Why go half-way?
After the 2004
murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by a homegrown jihadist, the Dutch are
starting to reassess their anything-goes ethos.
In a 2006 opinion
survey, 63% said the Religion of Peace is incompatible with modern European
life, 68% felt threatened by “immigrant or Muslim young people,” 53% feared a
terrorist attack by Dutch Muslims and 47% believed that at some point in their
lives, Holland would be governed by Islamic law.
In 1955, John
Wayne made “Blood Alley,” a movie about a shipload of Chinese villagers dodging
danger as they fled the Chi-Coms. Along with France, Germany and the United
Kingdom, the Netherlands is beginning to look like Allah Alley.
Due to immigration
and procreation, Dutch Muslims have gone from 22,000 in 1973 to more than 1
million today, roughly 6% of the population. In March, the Dutch government
announced a 10 million Euro program to combat the radicalization of Muslim
youth. The methods to be employed weren’t specified. Presumably, they will not
include buying prayer rugs for Catholics.
Besides the
slaughter (literally) of Van Gogh - because he had the temerity to do a
documentary on the abuse of women under Islam - last November, four Dutch Muslims
were convicted of plotting a terror campaign.
The ringleader,
Samir Azzouz, had prepared a suicide video intended to “strike terrible fear
into the Dutch people.” The cell’s targets included Prime Minister Jan Peter
Balkenende and former MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who renounced Islam and helped Van
Gogh with his film.
In December, 2004,
the Dutch Ministry of the Interior released a 60-page report titled “From Dawa
(proselytizing) To Jihad,” which conservatively estimated that there are
50,000 Islamic radicals amongst the tulips and windmills.
According to the
report, the Saudis have financed a number of mosques and Islamic organizations
(never a good sign), including Amsterdam’s Tawheed mosque, where Van Gogh’s
killer prayed, and whose imam refers to Christians and Jews as “kindling for
hell fire.” Now there’s a good-will gesture for you – one guaranteed to ease
tensions.
The report rated
the ability of Dutch society to resist Islamic extremism “low,” though this
seems to be improving. It also noted that the Dutch Muslim community is
particularly susceptible to radical influences.
Like Romans in the
dying days of the empire, Europeans have let barbarians in the gates, with
predictable consequences. There are an estimated 20 million Muslims in Europe
today. The percentage of Muslims in the population of the European Union doubled
between 1995 and 2005.
Go to any major
city in Western Europe and see who’s pushing strollers with two and three
children. It won’t be Babette, Anka or Inga. In Amsterdam, Rotterdam and
Brussels, the most popular name for baby boys is Mohammed – not in honor of the
American boxer.
The birthrate of
European Muslims is three times that of their non-Muslim counterparts (the
latter well below replacement level). In less than 20 years, it’s estimated that
one-third of all European children will be born into Moslem families. By 2050,
one in every five Europeans will pray to the same god as Osama bin Laden and the
Iranian ayatollahs.
Some Europeans are
fatalistic.
An October 25,
2006 article published in The Brussels Journal quotes German author
Henryk M. Broder, who told the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant that young
Europeans who don’t want to live under a Caliphate should leave while they
still can. Sitting on a balcony in Berlin, pointing to passersby, the author
sadly commented, “We are watching the world of yesterday.”
Others choose
accommodation, and even consider themselves heroic innovators for their
pathetic gestures – like Britain’s Booby Prince Charlie, who says that
instead of “Defender of the Faith” (a traditional title of British monarchs), he
prefers to think of himself as “Defender of the Faiths.” (Why not skip the
interim step and go directly to “commander of the faithful”?) This after a
conspiracy of Muslim doctors tried to blow up a number of his mum’s subjects in
July.
Less sanguine is a
French-born rabbi serving a synagogue in Brussels. Writing in The Jerusalem
Post last October, Rabbi David Meyer confessed: “I am frightened not just by
the anti-Semitism, but by the collective European response of indifference and
appeasement. Today, Europe worships compromise. It is ‘fanatical’ in its
non-violence. It is a Europe that, in the face of Islamic fanaticism, is ready
to stay silent” – or suggest that we all begin praying to the god of jihad.
“By refusing to
truly battle the Islamist ideology, by refusing to firmly and consistently
oppose the dangers of Iranian nuclear proliferation, by refusing to support
Israel in its battle against the menace of Hezbollah, Europe is saying
everything is ‘negotiable’” – even the faith of its fathers.
Goodbye,
Christendom. Hello, Caliphate. Allah – what a beautiful way to say “I give up;
please don’t hurt me!”
It’s fun to
chuckle at the Europeans – feckless, faithless, gutless. But America too is on
a suicide watch, thanks to the treason of the elites.
· In September, New York
City will open
the first public school for Arabic-speaking students. One can imagine a typical
math lesson: If Ahmed can saw through flesh and bone at the rate of an inch a
minute, how many Zionists can he decapitate in an hour?
· In May, the Department of Homeland
Security announced a $15,000 grant to the Islamic Society of Baltimore, to help
upgrade its security system. This is part of a $24-million program to aid
non-profit organizations “deemed high-risk for a potential international
terrorist attack.” Why international terrorists – who aren’t exactly
Presbyterians – would want to attack American mosques is a mystery. The
ever-helpful CAIR (which sits on the FBI’s community advisory board) is
encouraging Islamic organizations to belly up to the bar. Giving an
anti-terrorism grant to a mosque is like airport security doing a pat-down on an
octogenarian nun, while expediting the boarding process for a flying imam.
· In June, The Detroit News
reported that the University of Michigan-Dearborn will spend $25,000 to install
“foot-washing stations” on campus, to facilitate Muslim religious practice. That
the university is a public institution apparently presents no problem for
the “church/state separation” crowd. This at a time when college administrators – at
public and private institutions – are busy removing crosses from chapels and
renaming Christmas parties.
· At its winter meeting, the
Democratic National Committee was led in prayer by Imam Husham Al-Husainy of the
Dearborn, Mich. Karbalaa Islamic Education Center. The Imam asked Allah to: “So
guide us to the right path. The path of the people you bless, not the path of
the people you doom.” According to the Koran, Islam is “the path of the people
you bless,” while other religions are the “path of the people you doom.” The
dumb Democrats didn’t realize they were praying for their own conversion. And,
if they did, would it have mattered?
· The State Department has issued
visas to hundreds of fundamentalist Muslim clerics, who come from countries like
Egypt, Pakistan and Jordan – areas of intense Al Qaeda activity - many of them
recent graduates of Saudi-supported Wahhabi seminaries. Law enforcement agencies
are urging the State Department to exercise more discretion here. But
Condoleezza Rice’s boys are determined to prove to the Islamic world just how
much we love that old religion of peace. (The Secretary of State calls Islam a
“religion of peace and love,” and has referred to Hamas as a “resistance
movement.”) Come to the land of opportunity, where the streets are paved with
explosives! Come on over and create more Jose Padillas.
· To honor the heroes of Flight 93,
the brave passengers who fought back against 9/11 hijackers, by an act of
Congress, our government is creating a national memorial in the shape of the Islamic
crescent, which is called (I kid you not) “The Crescent of Embrace.” While the
architect who designed this multicultural monstrosity maintains there’s no
religious symbolism, if you stood facing the middle of the half-mile wide
crescent, you would be almost exactly oriented toward Mecca. Tom Burnett Sr. –
father of one of the Flight 93 heroes – says he won’t allow his son’s name to be
used on a memorial that incorporates the faith of the killers. Imagine the
uproar if they’d designed the World War II memorial in the shape of a giant
swastika.
In the past, I’ve
referred to contemporary leftists as residents of the Happy Land of
Make-Believe, where the real world isn’t allowed to intrude on comforting
delusions. In her new book, “The Death of the Grown-Up,” Diana West has another
name for it – “dreampolitik” – an entrenched reality-avoidance which
characterizes many of the ‘60s generation, who are frozen in an adolescent
time-warp.
You’ll encounter
them at Starbucks, ordering their favorite environmentally friendly beverage. You’ll see
them zipping around town in their VWs, plastered with “War is Not The Answer”
bumper-stickers. What is the answer, anyway – surrender, submission, slavery,
self-destruction?
As he prepares for
dhimmitude (the inferior status of unbelievers) in the coming Caliphate, Bishop
Muskens may have forgotten that a year ago the people he’s trying to appease by
adopting the name of their god were threatening to kill the head of his church.
When Benedict XVI
quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor to the effect that everything wasn’t
groovy with the creed of the Prophet, Muslims from Jakarta to London were
chanting “Death to the Pope,” and burning in effigy the spiritual leader of a
billion Roman Catholics.
To show just how
offended they were by the suggestion that Islam is violent, they shot a nun in
Somalia, firebombed a number of West Bank churches and murdered some Hindus (who
never imagined they were agents of the Vatican).
Despite the pope’s
repeated apologies, an Iraqi gang predicted, “The day is coming when the armies
of Islam will destroy the ramparts of Rome.” (They already have a beachhead and
unwitting fifth-columnists to facilitate the conquest.) When it comes to Islam
and every other religion, sensitivity and magnanimity are a one-way street.
To accommodate
Islam, praying in the name of Allah may not go far enough. In the ultimate
gesture of solidarity with those of the jihad persuasion, perhaps infidels
should start cutting off their own heads – following the good example of the
Bishop of Breda.
Don Feder is a former Boston Herald writer who is now a
political/communications consultant. He also maintains his own
website, DonFeder.com.
