Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff: “Islamophobia” is Islamic Slander

From Big Peace:

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) began in the days of detente as a forum for discussion and debate between East and West on issues like “conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation.”  Unfortunately since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the OSCE has become a forum for Islamic and leftist grievance-mongering with the Turkish organization Council for Justice, Equality and Peace (COJEP) taking a lead role in stifling criticism of Islam and infringing upon basic free speech rights. Through new NGOs like Buergerbewegung Pax Europa (BPA), the OSCE is a battlefield in the war of ideas that an increasing number of brave Europeans have entered.
 
This week, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff represented BPA and the International Civil Liberties Alliance at a OSCE conference in Vienna entitled, “Confronting Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims in Public Discourse.” Her prepared testimony is below. Thanks to Gates of Vienna for publishing the text.


Today’s meeting is ostensibly concerned with confronting intolerance and discrimination against Muslims in public discourse. Actually, however, it focuses on “Islamophobia”, a term invented by the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1990’s. According to the David Horowitz Freedom Center, “it has become ‘a matter of extreme priority’ for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.” It appears that the UK-based Runnymede Trust in 1996 coined the “accepted” definition, which includes any and all of the following components:

1. Islam seen as a single monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to new realities.
2. Islam seen as separate and other: (a) not having any aims or values in common with other cultures,
   (b) not affected by them, and (c) not influencing them.
3. Islam seen as inferior to the West — barbaric, irrational, primitive, sexist.
4. Islam seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism, engaged in ‘a clash of civilizations’.
5. Islam seen as a political ideology, used for political or military advantage.
6. Criticisms made by Islam of ‘the West’ rejected out of hand.
7. Hostility towards Islam used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society.
8. Anti-Muslim hostility accepted as natural and ‘normal’.

Runneymede has been in a close relationship with the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation for some time. Pax Europa and its affiliations note with grave concern that this definition — or any definition — of Islamophobia cannot and does not address the underlying problems with Islam and its teachings.
For example, Pax Europa believes that Islam denies equal rights to men and women. According to the above definition, simply raising this point has been considered Islamophobia. Pax Europa believes that for many, there is a political ideology component to Islam. Since its ideology informs the doctrine of political organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, it is indeed a political ideology. Pax Europa is accused of Islamophobia for speaking to this reality, even when it can demonstrate a factual basis for the statements it makes in this regard.

Pax Europa is of the opinion that criticism of a religion, including Islam, must remain legitimate. This is echoed by the OSCE: “Criticisms of religious practices (just religious practices, not religions themselves?; BPE) are legitimate speech.” We believe, however, that while Muslims are not a monolithic group, for those Muslims who accept Islam as an ideology, there are elements of Islamic law that are monolithic, in that all Muslims worldwide, whether they live in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, consider the Koran and the Hadith (authentic sayings of Mohammed) as the basis of their legal system. Certainly groups like the Muslim Brotherhood profess this! How are groups like Pax Europa to discuss such issues if not allowed to speak to the language and doctrines that define them?

Go read the whole thing. 

The Enemy is Inside the Wire 

By FrankGaffney
What would have happened if, during the Cold War, Soviet intelligence had been responsible for training Americans charged with countering communist aggression? Surely, we would not have defeated the USSR. Perhaps, instead, Kruschev's boast that his nation would dance on our graves would have been realized. 

It should, therefore, be profoundly alarming that, today, the Obama administration is entrusting to agents of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or Ikhwan in Arabic) the responsibility for approving who and what is used in "countering violent extremism" training for our military, law enforcement, intelligence personnel. The use of the term "countering violent extremism" (or CVE) is, of course, the first clue that the enemy is inside the wire.

Read the full story here.