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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lorne who wrote (715)	11/30/2004 8:15:19 PM
From: lorne	Respond to of 224648

Humanist Association of Toronto humanist.toronto.on.ca Islam & Islamic Law: The Threat to Canada and the World (Monthly Meeting, April 11) Fatemolla presented a talk after which he and Tarek Fatah, a founding member of the Muslim Canadian Congress, both answered questions from the audience. Members who attended the Forum preceding the talk by Fatemolla (well known journalist and human rights activist), were made familiar with the article, “Shari’a, A Threat to the Canadian Society” which appears elsewhere in this newsletter. The concept of a Shari’a takeover is so alien to the average Canadian, that it was helpful to have heard this article before being presented with Fatemolla’s bone chilling view of the threat of Shari’a. Shari’a, the laws of Islam, were codified in the 8th and 9th centuries during which time the kings shaped the laws to their needs, which were essentially to maintain ironfisted control and total power. Now Shari’a is regarded as the divine constitution of Political Islam. Shari’a and Political Islam are a world threat because the requirement of the former and the intent of the latter is the establishment of Islamic States worldwide. Shari’a systemically and systematically oppresses women. For example, a woman cannot testify as an eye witness. Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslim men, but Muslim men may marry Jews or Christians without requiring their wives to convert to Islam. The penalty for leaving Islam is death. Even consenting adults who have sex outside of marriage can expect stoning. In a province of Pakistan, females can only go to female medical technicians, but there are no female ultrasound technicians. In Malaysia, a man may divorce his wife by leaving a message on the answering machine. A Spanish Muslim leader wrote a book advising how to beat a wife without leaving scars. Afghanistan has banned all female singers from appearing on television. “Political Islam is a cunning organization which wants to destroy all states not supporting Islam.” In the written public statement of the group, they claim that Allah “commands that Shari’a be implemented all over the world.” Nationalism is anathema to Islam. To remain a Muslim, Political Islam demands the rejection of allegiance to one’s Islamic nation state. George W. Bush and Tony Blair seriously misunderstood the nature of the problems in the Middle East; and as a result in Iraq all the power now rests with Shari’a. In fact, Bush’s actions in the Middle East produced the final trump for Shari’a, which is now at an all time high. The West is now very successfully portrayed as “The enemy of Islam”. The West must realize that this is a cultural war, not a military war. The West is focused on fighting specific terrorists and specific terrorist groups. But the war is not on terrorists. It is on terrorism. If all terrorists in the world were magically removed, Shari’a would generate hundreds of others. We must eliminate the terrorism. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a central explosive catalyst for the power of Shari’a. Peace between those two groups is essential before Shari’a can be diffused and defeated. Fatemolla ended by making 3 suggestions for action by HAT: 1) Establish a public dialogue between political and non-political Muslims which should be recorded and shared as widely as possible, especially among the media. 2) Print a list of typical Shari’a laws and distribute them as posters and flyers. 3) Launch a movement to have a statement included on the Immigration form signed by those wishing to enter the country to the effect that they believe in and intend to work for a secular democracy. The question and answer period which followed dealt mostly with questions relating to Canada and Toronto. Some of the information from that part of the meeting follows, in no particular order. Most mosque structured organizations in the West are funded by American and Saudi money. Eight billion dollars was given to mosques in North America. One mosque group (Council of Islamic Relations CAIR) got half a million dollars in cash from a Saudi Prince. The Manifesto of the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice (Canada) states, “If you choose Canadian law instead of Shari’a, therefore you do not believe in Islam.” There is a subtle racism in the country that results in the attitude towards the problem of Shari’a being ignored as something that only affects a bunch of immigrants in a ghetto. Why should we get involved? They will adjust in a couple of generations. The political left has been co-opted into the camp of Political Islam. When the left sides with those supporting Palestinians against Israel, they are siding with Political Islam and often they don’t even realize that. A speaker at all local anti-war rallies is Bangash, a local leader of Political Islam. There is extra pressure to get Shari’a accepted now because the Muslims who are in their seventies and eighties are dying off and leaving estates of great wealth. Many wish to make sure that Shari’a will be used to divide up those estates. For example, Under Shari’a the jewelry of a dead mother does not go to her daughter but to her sons and to her son-in-law. Most Muslim groups are getting funds from Heritage Canada. We should be insisting that only groups that support the separation of church and state and the democratic supremacy of the people should be funded. The dilemma: While it is essential that the battle within the Muslim community be fought by Muslims, the penalties are extremely high. They are declared to be apostate, and, under Shari’a could be stoned and/or killed. Those of us who are not Muslims and wish to take on the battle would at most suffer a court case. But our effect on the internal problem would be minimal. After 9/11 and Bush’s bombing of Afghanistan, Political Islam became anti-Imperialist. Unlike other religions, Islam has never undergone a reformation. “If new immigrants do not understand that in Canada, we uphold the separation of church and state, then the battle will be lost.” Elka Enola

To: lorne who wrote (715)	12/2/2004 2:06:59 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Respond to of 224648

lorne, that's absolutely outrageous. Hopefully Canadian women are protesting such medieval attitudes. If foreigners want to immigrate to another nation, they must assimilate to that culture--not the other way around. Hillary Clinton's leadership is overkill in the USA, where women are definitely equal to their spouses in the eyes of the law, but she could certainly be useful in CAN by fighting for those downtrodden Muslim women. Of course, she has more ambitious goals for the next few yrs.<g>