There are two books on a bookshelf in Naser Khader's office in the Danish parliament. One is a beautiful hardcover with a crimson jacket and the title "The Adoption and Confirmation of the Constitution, 1915". Inside is a large photograph from the parliament the day when the constitution was enacted. The book to its side has a large jacket: Atlas of Palestine, 1948.
On the wall above the bookshelf hangs a pigeonhole box with sticky notes. A subject for every compartment: gang crime, asylum, finance law, group meetings and Ny Alliance.
"I haven't gotten to changing it to "Liberal Alliance," he grins. Khader has other things to see to these weeks - and big ambitions.
Recently he was invited to a group of internally known critics of Islamism, Islam's political version, and in the meeting in France the group created a for-now secret association to fight extreme Islam. For the group and Naser Khader, Copenhagen and Denmark have a central place in this struggle.
"I have an ambition to make Denmark into a "freedom of speech country" and we're now working at arranging a freedom of speech conference in Copenhagen every other year in the style of Bjørn Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus conferences on the climate issue. Here we will meet, take status of the struggle, measure how far we've come and draw up a Copenhagen declaration. The aim is to inspire moderate Muslims around the world."
Naser Khader hopes that the first conference can take place in parallel to the UN's racism conference Durban II in April next year, where a series of Muslim countries together with their organization OIC will attempt to ban criticism of religion, for example Islam, as blasphemy.
At that time the group participants will appear publicly for the first time.
"I presented the idea to them and they are excited with the idea that the conference will take place in Copenhagen. We will hold a meeting for us the first day and a public meeting the second. It might be good that our reputation was not damaged much in Saudi Arabia, but people can just be proud of it. Denmark truly is a big star among freedom fighters. They follow up on what happens in Denmark and when I met with the group they were almost as updated on what happens here as I myself was. What we say and do in Denmark goes out very quickly if it's interesting for the struggle against Islam and for freedom of speech."
- Why won't you say who they are or what the association is called?
"Because we promised each other to keep it secret for now and work behind the scenes. But I can say that it's people who fight for freedom of speech, who have seen the consequences personally and who are intenrationally famous."
The meeting a month and half ago was held in a French chateau and the invitation came, according to Naser Khader, from an English man who has sold his businesses and dedicated himself to the struggle against Islamic extremism.
"I said at first no to the meeting several times. I thought that he was just an eccentric man and the names he sent, I didn't really know. Afterward I learned that he couldn't write the names in the mail for security reasons and I understood that well, when I came down there and saw who was there."
At a prelude-meeting to Durban II, held in Geneva, Naser Khader used on Sep. 17th a proposition that can be seen as a sort of program declaration: "Islamism is racism".
He brought the phrasing home from the meeting in France.
"My statement, Islamism is equal to racism, was actually one of our conclusions. Another conclusion was that we will put our internal disagreements aside and focus on what we're dealing with. Mainly that it will soon be too late if we won't do anything to fight Islamism. For example, one of the participants was a member of the Politburo in the Communist party in her own country. Her means to reach the goal are completely different than for me, who is a liberal. But we agree not to take up that discussion because we're really in the middle of a global struggle, a war," says Naser Khader.
"We're focusing a lot on the struggle against Bin Laden extremists and terrorists but they're just the top of the iceberg. The real struggle is about values and Islamists find influence everywhere. We discussed who will really fight Islamism, is it the West of the Muslims themselves? In connection to Islamist terrorism people need the West's weapons and strength, but in connection to Islamism in general, the moderate Muslims must be activated.
We also spoke about that when a moderate Muslim writes a book, Islamists write ten books. They have publishers, they have money and they are also reasonably in consensus while the moderates maybe can agree on fighting Islamism but from various political meanings. Some thought that the solution is to leave Islam but my opinion is that people should stay inside and fight it."
"People won't shift many moderate Muslims in the fight against Islamism by calling Muhammed a pedophile, forbidding the Koran and such things. It's OK that have that point of view, but I don't think it works, if the ambition is to shift opinions."
"We had a discussion about it, but we agreed on the conclusion that Islamism is racism. Some will object that it certainly has nothing to do with race, but the point is that racism, in the way we use the word today, is based more on lifestyle and attitudes than on race. It's the racism of our time, since Islamist see themselves as better people than others. The others are sub-humans and will go to hell."
The novel of American author Sherry Jones, The Jewel of Medina, was also discussed at the meeting in France. The novel, which might soon be published in Denmark, tells of Muhammed's relations with his youngest wife, Aisha. It awoke the anger of Islamists. Last weekend the British police averted a possible fire attack against the Gibson Square publishers in London, and this caused New York publisher Beaufort Books to close their office, out of security concerns.
In Denmark the book is planned to be published in December by Pressto publishers, owned by journalist and author Bjarke Larsen. He was for a period a member of Ny Alliance, but ran afoul of Naser Khader and the rest of the party's leadership. He still hasn't abandoned the book publishing, but said to JydskeVestkysten: "I'm going now to deliberate if it's worth it. My attitude remains that I want to publish the book, but I'm not sure I'll do it if it will affect my and my family's safety and escalate to a new Muhammed crisis, where people will be killed."
This got Naser Khader to the phone: "I hadn't spoken with him since he left the Alliance because we disagreed. I called and said that I preferred not to speak about that subject but that the book will be published. He wasn't sure and so I said that I in one way or another will ensure that the book will be published. Not because I want to but because it will be published since otherwise it's a war which is lost.
According to Naser Khader the West doesn't realize where the real danger lies when it comes to the struggle for peace and civilization.
"Yes, Iran is dangerous and we will do what we can to prevent them from getting a nuclear bomb, but Iran is nothing compared to Saudi Arabia. I see Saudi Arabia as a country that constitutes the largest threat against world peace. Iran's ambition is to become a local superpower, but the Saudis have global ambition and buy influence over the whole world," he says and names the case of the American journalist Martyn Burke's report about the internal showdown between moderate and extremist Muslims. Khader contributed, just like the now deceased Danish imam Abu Laban, to the broadcast, whose theme is the Muhammed crisis and the following events in Denmark."
"Martyn Burke is a famous journalist on the public service channel PBS, but though he's employed there, people said 'no' to showing the broadcast. Why? Because on the PBS board there's a Saudi Arabian who vetoed. The Saudis buy influence in medias, football and stock exchanges and in connection to Denmark and freedom of speech the meeting which was held in Saudi Arabia in December 2005, where the cartoon case exploded, is crucial to me. At the meeting people declared that they will now fight against freedom of speech, since, for one, freedom of speech brings about criticism of Islam and Muslims."
"This time both Saudi Arabia and Egypt went and told the masses: "Relax, we're taking this up in the UN." Therefore I see Durban II as an extension of the cartoon crisis."
Naser Khader looks for a book which asserts the point of view that the Saudi family in reality are squatters of the Muslims' holy places, Mecca and Medina.
"In this place, where Muhammed lived, they built a gas station. There, where one of his wives lived, there's a hotel. Just like in the Koran it's forbidden to draw Muhammed, there's also a requirement that some places are holy - it is certainly therefore Muslim make pilgrimage to Mecca - and therefore that author wonders that people can become so insulted by some cartoons while they don't feel insulted that the Saudis removed almost all remains of Muhammed."
"But there have been no responses from the Muslims' side and this shows the strength of Saudi Arabia. What they've done is a thousand times worse than the cartoons."
But Naser Khader's ambitions reach further than just to a regressed freedom of speech conference in Copenhagen. He wants a whole new UN, where countries can only be members if they fulfill some basic requirements of secret and free elections, freedoms of speech, association and religion.
"Actually I wrote an article with that idea already in 2000 and I became very unpopular in the Social Liberal Party - you know, all the talk about dialog and that we will be together - but now I've just been to Geneva preparation of Durban II and there's no dialog."
"The Muslim countries lump themselves together and allay themselves against the democratic countries. I spoke in the NGO part but attended also the official part and the first person, who started speaking, was a Saudi Arabian, who praised Sudan for being the most progressive African country, where women have equal rights and that it's a myth that some are killed. And they filled up the corridors outside with large billboards which show Sudanese women with computers. It was completely grotesque."
- What with the current UN?
"The dictators can just continue themselves"
- What's with China?
"They can't join a new UN if they aren't democratic. It's China who blocked us from helping the refugees in Darfur and it's they who sit and veto when it comes to human rights."
- What's with peace, the UN's goal? Wouldn't it be ditched if there's no longer a common forum in which to speak?
"It's just a myth that there's talks and dialog. It's not there anymore. Durban II is a good example. And greadually I want to say: screw dialog. There are no dialogs. The totalitarians only use the UN to send their family members to New York and Geneva and give them good jobs for which they're really not qualified."
- You say that moderate Muslims will remain and take up the fight from the inside. Why doesn't that hold for the UN?
"Since the struggle is lost. They have just prepared a report that shows that EU countries and the other democratic countries lost more and more votes. They don't go in our direction. The people in democratic countries are very critical of the UN and the UN are about to lose the trust of the people. So we must rather move forward instead of responding. It will be a dream if Denmark will be the first country that will go out and declare that we can't stand alone, but that we will work for a democratic UN and establish a democratic alliance," he says.
In the pigeonhole box above the bookcase there are papers on group meetings, gang crime, climate and energy in their bins next to "Ny Alliance".
- Is this a struggle which is more interesting for you than Danish internal affairs?
"Yes, I see the struggle against Islamism as the most important struggle we have in front of us."
Source: Weekendavisen (Danish)
See also: Denmark: New anti-Islam group might attract terrorist attacks, UK: Jihad news 1
On the wall above the bookshelf hangs a pigeonhole box with sticky notes. A subject for every compartment: gang crime, asylum, finance law, group meetings and Ny Alliance.
"I haven't gotten to changing it to "Liberal Alliance," he grins. Khader has other things to see to these weeks - and big ambitions.
Recently he was invited to a group of internally known critics of Islamism, Islam's political version, and in the meeting in France the group created a for-now secret association to fight extreme Islam. For the group and Naser Khader, Copenhagen and Denmark have a central place in this struggle.
"I have an ambition to make Denmark into a "freedom of speech country" and we're now working at arranging a freedom of speech conference in Copenhagen every other year in the style of Bjørn Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus conferences on the climate issue. Here we will meet, take status of the struggle, measure how far we've come and draw up a Copenhagen declaration. The aim is to inspire moderate Muslims around the world."
Naser Khader hopes that the first conference can take place in parallel to the UN's racism conference Durban II in April next year, where a series of Muslim countries together with their organization OIC will attempt to ban criticism of religion, for example Islam, as blasphemy.
At that time the group participants will appear publicly for the first time.
"I presented the idea to them and they are excited with the idea that the conference will take place in Copenhagen. We will hold a meeting for us the first day and a public meeting the second. It might be good that our reputation was not damaged much in Saudi Arabia, but people can just be proud of it. Denmark truly is a big star among freedom fighters. They follow up on what happens in Denmark and when I met with the group they were almost as updated on what happens here as I myself was. What we say and do in Denmark goes out very quickly if it's interesting for the struggle against Islam and for freedom of speech."
- Why won't you say who they are or what the association is called?
"Because we promised each other to keep it secret for now and work behind the scenes. But I can say that it's people who fight for freedom of speech, who have seen the consequences personally and who are intenrationally famous."
The meeting a month and half ago was held in a French chateau and the invitation came, according to Naser Khader, from an English man who has sold his businesses and dedicated himself to the struggle against Islamic extremism.
"I said at first no to the meeting several times. I thought that he was just an eccentric man and the names he sent, I didn't really know. Afterward I learned that he couldn't write the names in the mail for security reasons and I understood that well, when I came down there and saw who was there."
At a prelude-meeting to Durban II, held in Geneva, Naser Khader used on Sep. 17th a proposition that can be seen as a sort of program declaration: "Islamism is racism".
He brought the phrasing home from the meeting in France.
"My statement, Islamism is equal to racism, was actually one of our conclusions. Another conclusion was that we will put our internal disagreements aside and focus on what we're dealing with. Mainly that it will soon be too late if we won't do anything to fight Islamism. For example, one of the participants was a member of the Politburo in the Communist party in her own country. Her means to reach the goal are completely different than for me, who is a liberal. But we agree not to take up that discussion because we're really in the middle of a global struggle, a war," says Naser Khader.
"We're focusing a lot on the struggle against Bin Laden extremists and terrorists but they're just the top of the iceberg. The real struggle is about values and Islamists find influence everywhere. We discussed who will really fight Islamism, is it the West of the Muslims themselves? In connection to Islamist terrorism people need the West's weapons and strength, but in connection to Islamism in general, the moderate Muslims must be activated.
We also spoke about that when a moderate Muslim writes a book, Islamists write ten books. They have publishers, they have money and they are also reasonably in consensus while the moderates maybe can agree on fighting Islamism but from various political meanings. Some thought that the solution is to leave Islam but my opinion is that people should stay inside and fight it."
"People won't shift many moderate Muslims in the fight against Islamism by calling Muhammed a pedophile, forbidding the Koran and such things. It's OK that have that point of view, but I don't think it works, if the ambition is to shift opinions."
"We had a discussion about it, but we agreed on the conclusion that Islamism is racism. Some will object that it certainly has nothing to do with race, but the point is that racism, in the way we use the word today, is based more on lifestyle and attitudes than on race. It's the racism of our time, since Islamist see themselves as better people than others. The others are sub-humans and will go to hell."
The novel of American author Sherry Jones, The Jewel of Medina, was also discussed at the meeting in France. The novel, which might soon be published in Denmark, tells of Muhammed's relations with his youngest wife, Aisha. It awoke the anger of Islamists. Last weekend the British police averted a possible fire attack against the Gibson Square publishers in London, and this caused New York publisher Beaufort Books to close their office, out of security concerns.
In Denmark the book is planned to be published in December by Pressto publishers, owned by journalist and author Bjarke Larsen. He was for a period a member of Ny Alliance, but ran afoul of Naser Khader and the rest of the party's leadership. He still hasn't abandoned the book publishing, but said to JydskeVestkysten: "I'm going now to deliberate if it's worth it. My attitude remains that I want to publish the book, but I'm not sure I'll do it if it will affect my and my family's safety and escalate to a new Muhammed crisis, where people will be killed."
This got Naser Khader to the phone: "I hadn't spoken with him since he left the Alliance because we disagreed. I called and said that I preferred not to speak about that subject but that the book will be published. He wasn't sure and so I said that I in one way or another will ensure that the book will be published. Not because I want to but because it will be published since otherwise it's a war which is lost.
According to Naser Khader the West doesn't realize where the real danger lies when it comes to the struggle for peace and civilization.
"Yes, Iran is dangerous and we will do what we can to prevent them from getting a nuclear bomb, but Iran is nothing compared to Saudi Arabia. I see Saudi Arabia as a country that constitutes the largest threat against world peace. Iran's ambition is to become a local superpower, but the Saudis have global ambition and buy influence over the whole world," he says and names the case of the American journalist Martyn Burke's report about the internal showdown between moderate and extremist Muslims. Khader contributed, just like the now deceased Danish imam Abu Laban, to the broadcast, whose theme is the Muhammed crisis and the following events in Denmark."
"Martyn Burke is a famous journalist on the public service channel PBS, but though he's employed there, people said 'no' to showing the broadcast. Why? Because on the PBS board there's a Saudi Arabian who vetoed. The Saudis buy influence in medias, football and stock exchanges and in connection to Denmark and freedom of speech the meeting which was held in Saudi Arabia in December 2005, where the cartoon case exploded, is crucial to me. At the meeting people declared that they will now fight against freedom of speech, since, for one, freedom of speech brings about criticism of Islam and Muslims."
"This time both Saudi Arabia and Egypt went and told the masses: "Relax, we're taking this up in the UN." Therefore I see Durban II as an extension of the cartoon crisis."
Naser Khader looks for a book which asserts the point of view that the Saudi family in reality are squatters of the Muslims' holy places, Mecca and Medina.
"In this place, where Muhammed lived, they built a gas station. There, where one of his wives lived, there's a hotel. Just like in the Koran it's forbidden to draw Muhammed, there's also a requirement that some places are holy - it is certainly therefore Muslim make pilgrimage to Mecca - and therefore that author wonders that people can become so insulted by some cartoons while they don't feel insulted that the Saudis removed almost all remains of Muhammed."
"But there have been no responses from the Muslims' side and this shows the strength of Saudi Arabia. What they've done is a thousand times worse than the cartoons."
But Naser Khader's ambitions reach further than just to a regressed freedom of speech conference in Copenhagen. He wants a whole new UN, where countries can only be members if they fulfill some basic requirements of secret and free elections, freedoms of speech, association and religion.
"Actually I wrote an article with that idea already in 2000 and I became very unpopular in the Social Liberal Party - you know, all the talk about dialog and that we will be together - but now I've just been to Geneva preparation of Durban II and there's no dialog."
"The Muslim countries lump themselves together and allay themselves against the democratic countries. I spoke in the NGO part but attended also the official part and the first person, who started speaking, was a Saudi Arabian, who praised Sudan for being the most progressive African country, where women have equal rights and that it's a myth that some are killed. And they filled up the corridors outside with large billboards which show Sudanese women with computers. It was completely grotesque."
- What with the current UN?
"The dictators can just continue themselves"
- What's with China?
"They can't join a new UN if they aren't democratic. It's China who blocked us from helping the refugees in Darfur and it's they who sit and veto when it comes to human rights."
- What's with peace, the UN's goal? Wouldn't it be ditched if there's no longer a common forum in which to speak?
"It's just a myth that there's talks and dialog. It's not there anymore. Durban II is a good example. And greadually I want to say: screw dialog. There are no dialogs. The totalitarians only use the UN to send their family members to New York and Geneva and give them good jobs for which they're really not qualified."
- You say that moderate Muslims will remain and take up the fight from the inside. Why doesn't that hold for the UN?
"Since the struggle is lost. They have just prepared a report that shows that EU countries and the other democratic countries lost more and more votes. They don't go in our direction. The people in democratic countries are very critical of the UN and the UN are about to lose the trust of the people. So we must rather move forward instead of responding. It will be a dream if Denmark will be the first country that will go out and declare that we can't stand alone, but that we will work for a democratic UN and establish a democratic alliance," he says.
In the pigeonhole box above the bookcase there are papers on group meetings, gang crime, climate and energy in their bins next to "Ny Alliance".
- Is this a struggle which is more interesting for you than Danish internal affairs?
"Yes, I see the struggle against Islamism as the most important struggle we have in front of us."
Source: Weekendavisen (Danish)
See also: Denmark: New anti-Islam group might attract terrorist attacks, UK: Jihad news 1
2 comments:
"People won't shift many moderate Muslims in the fight against Islamism by calling Muhammed a pedophile, forbidding the Koran and such things. It's OK that have that point of view, but I don't think it works, if the ambition is to shift opinions."
Wrong. Islam is black and white and so is anti-Islam. There is no shifting; there are two sides, no middle ground. Muslim = jihadist, if only financially. It's like trying to bring Nazis around to 'moderate' Nazism, except that Nazism, unlike Islam, actually had a few worthwhile values like hard work, education, individual agency, and snappy dressing. Either you're a decent person and you find everything about Islam unacceptable, or you're with the jihadists. It's not like there's any middle ground. There is not one issue, one topic, one subject upon which even 'moderate' Muslim-corns and reasonable, decent, thinking, moral, ethical, civilized, evolved, outbred people agree. The CSPI has tried to come up with one for years and haven't managed to. Even 'cultural' Muslim-corns are unacceptable: they pray for the rape, enslavement, and genocide of all the decent people in the world and commit treasonous sedition 5 times a day and require their women and little girls to live their entire lives as sex slaves.
It's a matter of educating the non-zombies who possess souls, brains, and moral compasses, not of bringing jihadists around to just praying for and funding genocide instead working for it too. It's not about dealing with 'moderate' Muslim-corns. It's about bringing ex-Muslims like Ali Sina, Ibn Warraq, Ayaan Ali Hirsi, Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish, etc. out of the woodwork.
Under no circumstances is anyone who denies the existence and the pervasiveness of the Golden Rule a decent human being who deserves to live. Under no circumstances is anyone who believes in a God who hates the majority of his children and wants them dead, or in the divinity - the humanity even - of a rapist, pedophile, mass murderer, polygamist, slave-owner, racist, misogynist, narcissist, hypocrite, psychopath, necrophiliac, looter, pervert, incestuous, torturer, psychopath, monster, cult leader a decent human being worthy of being tolerated. Anyone who knows a damn thing about Islam and dares defend a single aspect of it is necessarily mentally ill and intolerably evil. Period.
He is absolutely right about the necessity of forming a new UN comprised only of countries worthy of dealing with, which hold regular, free elections and have signed onto and uphold the UDHR and the Geneva Conventions. We're like France and Britain in 1939 in the League of Nations, begging, pleading for someone to please curtail Mr. Hitler, for he is being just abominable of late. Too bad about China. As far-right as I am, I think we could learn a lot from them about how to classify religions versus cults/seditious, intolerable political ideologies and how to deal with Muslims.
The Sudan anecdote puts me in mind of a Mark Steyn quip, though:
Sudan [is] the most progressive African country, where women have equal rights and that it's a myth that some are killed. And they filled up the corridors outside with large billboards which show Sudanese women with computers. It was completely grotesque."
Yeah, the Khartoum Feminist Publishing Group got so big and successful that the had to rent out the whole floor above the infibulation clinic. Har!
Yeah, basically.
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