The Truth? You can’t handle the Truth. And why is that? Are we all such cowards that we believe that by remaining ignorant we will somehow protect ourselves, our loved ones, from a future that we don’t want to imagine? That’s a sad and pathetic excuse to keep reaffirming for yourself if I’m right.
From Pakistan comes just another big-gong-of-a-wakeup-call for the non-Muslim world. Pull out the earplugs please:
ISLAMABAD - Pakistani Islamic scholars honoured Osama bin Laden today in response to Britain’s knighthood for Salman Rushdie, as a senior ruling party member said he would not hesitate to kill the novelist.
Meanwhile the country’s religious affairs minister, who caused outrage by remarking that the award given to the “Satanic Verses” author justified suicide attacks, announced that he may visit Britain next month.
The Pakistani Ulema Council, a private body that claims to be the biggest of its kind in the country with 2,000 scholars, said it had given Bin Laden the title “Saifullah”, or Sword of Allah, its top accolade.
“We are pleased to award the title of Saifullah to Osama bin Laden after the British government’s decision to bestow the title of ’Sir’ on blasphemer Rushdie,” council chairman Maulana Tahir Ashrafi told AFP.
“This is the highest title for a Muslim warrior.”
Bin Laden has been blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people. He is widely believed to be hiding on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Later Afzal Sahi - the speaker of the Punjab province assembly and a member of the Pakistan Muslim League party that backs President Pervez Musharraf - said during a debate that he would murder Rushdie if he saw him.
“I am a Muslim and then a politician and it is ordained in Islam that the punishment for a blasphemer is death. If this man comes in front of me I will definitely kill him,” he said in response to a question by an opposition MP.
During a protest by thousands of people in Lahore against Musharraf’s suspension of the Pakistani chief justice, a large part of the crowd briefly chanted “Death to Britain, Death to Rushdie”, witnesses said.
The neighbouring Islamic republics of Pakistan and Iran both summoned the British envoys to their countries on Tuesday as the row spread over the Rushdie award, which was announced on Saturday.
Britain hit back by expressing “deep concern” over the comments on suicide attacks by religious affairs minister Ijaz-ul Haq.
Haq - who later withdrew the remarks saying that he meant only that the award would foster extremism - said he now planned to visit Britain.
“Yes, I may travel to Britain next month as a British delegation has invited me to guide them on how to engage khateebs and imams (sermon deliverers and prayer leaders) in a constructive dialogue,” Haq told AFP.
The British delegation met Haq on Monday and included representatives from Britain’s Home Office and Foreign Office with responsibility for engaging with the Islamic world and preventing extremism, he said.
“I can confirm he did meet the delegation but I am not aware of any invitation,” said Aidan Liddle, a spokesman for the British High Commission (embassy) in Islamabad.
Former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto has called on Haq to resign.
Haq is the son of military dictator Zia-ul-Haq, who ruled Pakistan from 1977 until his death in a mysterious plane crash in 1988. His father introduced Islamic punishments to the country including death for blasphemy.
A comment piece in Britain’s Daily Telegraph said that if Pakistan was so angry about the issue, it should return the 480 million pounds in aid promised by Prime Minister Tony Blair last year.
“If this is tainted money, it can presumably be returned,” it said.
But in the Pakistani federal parliament Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain said that Blair was “personally and mentally against Muslims.”
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“A comment piece in Britain’s Daily Telegraph said that if Pakistan was so angry about the issue, it should return the 480 million pounds in aid promised by Prime Minister Tony Blair last year.
“If this is tainted money, it can presumably be returned,” it said.”
This matter should be discussed in the parliament and after a vote it should be decided to return the 480 miilion pound aid back to the British goverment. Paksitanis shall be a prooud nation to pay for the refund of the 480 million pounds …………………….
Indeed. I wonder how much further anti-West the Middle East would wax if all the billions in funding that is sent to Muslim nations (whatt amounts to no less than Dhimmitude taxation and bribery) were to suddenly stop flowing. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
Oh, well, if we’re to be damned, let’s stay a little richer and make those who would spit on us a little poorer.
It gets better. The man who wrote the Telegraph article is Andrew Marr: up to now renowned as the dhimmi liberal’s dhimmi liberal. Even dhimmi liberals used to point him out at cocktail parties and ask ‘who’s that dhimmi liberal over there?’ He was once the BBC’s chief political correspondent.
Progress. I hope this whole Rushdie (who, btw, I absolutely detest - but that’s not the point: our internal affairs are no business of Pakistan’s) businees builds into a worldwide outrage on the scale of the cartoons. Every time they do this sort of thing that’s a few more people over on our side of the equation. It’s even better for that than outright terrorist attacks. For those the dhimmi liberals always come back in and say it’s nothing to do with REAL Islam - just a few extremists. For this sort of thing, they can’t do that.
I would have to agree, but unfortunately I’m convinced that the only thing that will wake up Americans is another 9-11 — or worse.