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Khomeini Had Echoued in His Specific Objective to eliminate Rushdie

The problem began in January 1989. That was when the Moslems live in Bradford, England, decided to do something to show their anger of The Towards Satanic, A new novel by the writer Salman Rushdie celebrates that included passages making fun of of the Muhammad of Prophet. The Moslems, the especially Pakistani immigrants, bought a novel copy, took it to a public square, the attached to a stake, and to regulate it on the fire. The new ones of television showed this car da fed In the detail scandalized, and scene pictures were splashed through the British media for the days, the fact a major subject of discussion through the country.

To Pakistan himself, after a month accumulation, an unruly crowd of about 10,000 protest ones of anti- Rushdie took to the streets of the capital of Islamabad. Walk to the Center of Cultural American (a significant fact in himself), they attempted with the big energy, but without the success, regulate the heavily strengthened building on the fire. Six people are dead in the violence, and a lot more were injured. These events, in the bend, take the attention of Ayatollah Khomeini, the revolutionary leader of Iran, that took the prompt and radical action: February 14, 1989, it called upon "all enthusiastic Moslems quickly to execute" not just Salman Rushdie as the author of The Towards Satanic But "all these implied one in his edition that were conscious of his content". This decree took to the measures of urgency in England to protect the person of Rushdie, and to the weeks and to the months of excessive debate among the politicians of the world and to the intellectuals of the problems of liberty of speech and to blasphemy.

When dust regulated, Khomeini had failed in his specific objective to eliminate Rushdie physically: today, on a decade later, the author writes again books well received and accepting the literary rewards. But if Khomeini did not manage to harm Rushdie, it accomplished something far deeper: it stirred the souls of a lot of Moslems, rekindling a confidence direction in their faith and a strong impatience with the denigration of him, just like a determination to take the shocking one against does not import that perceived to be blasphemer or same a critic. Although Khomeini happened of the scene the just weeks after distributing his decree, the spirit that it generated is a lot living one.

During the decade since 1989, a lot of efforts were undertaken by the forces of Islamism - fundamentalism otherwise known as Moslem - to do be quiet critics. Etendre of the absolute violence to more artificial but not less than effective technical, they produced impressive results.

Some first acts of physical intimidation implied the Rushdie himself recognizes. The translators of The Towards Satanic Were stabbed and seriously was injured in Norway and Italy, and to murdered Japan. In Turkey, another translator escaped when a series of fire in his spoiled hotel to kill it, but 37 of others are dead in the flame. The other acts of violence were conceived to punish Moslem and not Moslem for a selection of presumed offenses.

Egypt offers alone a number of examples. The Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, a literature professor that wrote that the certain references in the to the supernatural phenomena should be read as the metaphors, found his marriage dissolves by an Egyptian court on the reason that its writings proved it an apostate. (According to the Islamic law, a Moslem woman could not be married to a Moslem no. Another case implied the author of an essay nonconformist on Islam: it, his editor, and printing it book was every condemned to eight years in the prison on the blasphemy load. Farag Foda, an Egyptian intellectual that expressed the scorn for the program of Islamist, was pulled and murdered. And Naguib Mahfouz, the elderly persons and the price winner Nobel a lot of celebrate for the literature, seriously was injured to Cairo when a knifed of aggressor him in the neck, probably in the vengeance for a decades more written, more original and more allegorical earlier.

Has or the country was limited to the countries of Moslem majority. Makin Morcos, also an Egyptien, was killed in Australia for critical the country of Islamists anti- Christian in his natal country; Rashad Khalifa, a biochemist of Egypt lives in Tucson, Arizona, was stabbed to the death in the month of January 1990 to do be quiet its heretical ideas. (A member of band of Bin LADEN of Usama was implied in the last murder). The two these incidents sent one cools the message: you can run but you cannot hide.

Is or at last the country in the western countries limited to the violence or to the violence threats against Moslems; it spreads himself also to Moslem nos. In some cases, the questions puresment private can be at the problem: Jack Briggs, an English, was on the lam, hiding during years with his woman of his Pakistani family that swore to kill them two (although they properly are married and although it converted to Islam to win their approval). The other cases concern seen publiquesment of the expressed: Steven Emerson, a former assistant of Senate and the investigation journalist for The New American one &the amplifier; the World-wide Report, CNN, and the other media, received the death threats for The Jihad in America, His first documentary of television that drew on the clean commercial video Islamists to show their views and the activities virulemment ANTI-anti-sedmites and anti- American.

Emerson said his history to a congress committee in 1998, and it carries to quote at length:

Immediately to follow the relacchement of The Jihad in America, I became the target of groups fondamentalistes radical through the United States (and internationally) that denied ferociously the existence of "Islamic extremism" and accused me of engages in a "the assault against Islam". For this "the transgression," my life was changed of a permanent manner.

Explain the details of just an incident - to choose among an entire collection - will help understands you the changes that I was forced to endure. A morning, in late 1995, I was asked by an officer of application of the federal law. When I returned the call, this officer instructed me immediately to direct in city to his office and directed me in particular to take a taxi instead of my car. The urgency in this voice of the person was tangible. When I arrived in the office, I was advanced in a piece where a group of others officers of application of the law awaited. In the minutes, I discovered why I had been called: I was said that a group of radical Islamic fondamentalistes had been assigned to execute an assassination of me. A true team of success had been sent of another country to the United States. The squad, according to available intelligence, was at the appointment with its American Based colleagues localized in several American cities. Compose bounces it of is said of this threat was an additional piece of information: the assassination squad had been with success able to escape the supervision of application of the law.

I was said that I had limited choices: since I was not an agent of the public one on time full sector, I was not authorized to 24-hour-a-day police protection. Nevertheless, I probably could obtain the permission to enter the Program of Security of Witness under the just circumstances. But the perspective of is animated far and given a new identity was not acceptable to me - especially since that would allow the terrorists a moral victory in me having closed. Frankly nevertheless the alternate option was not so appealing or - is alone and take my own chances. And nevertheless that for me was the only effective option.

While Emerson remains stubbornly on the track of Islamists, especially those among them that supports the terrorism, it has for four years was forced to live to a clandestine address, always looking at its movements. As the case of Rashad Khalifa, murdered in Tucson for its views, the case of Steven Emerson suggests that, despite the guarantees of Constitution of liberty of religion and of liberty of speech, when it is a matter of Islam, the non approved thought can take to the personal or same danger the death.

, Always Were forces it the only weapon in the arsenal of Islamists, their accomplishments would be limited. In the West, at least, the violence and the physical intimidation can attain only as much of. But, in contrast to the stereotype, Islamists are scarcely all men of success of wild one examined and the bomb posers; in the western countries, a lot of the is completely to the house with the computers, well lapsed into the last techniques of lobbying, and the follower to the game of victimology. Energique, resolved, and consumed, they employ the tools not of physics but rather of intellectual intimidation. Their objective in to do is if to construct a wall invioled around Islam, the endowing with something as the sacrosanct statute that it appreciates in the countries traditionnellesment Moslem.

THE Islamists of this last brand of line usage a lot of available every recourse to them in the laws and the customs of the liberal democracies of the west itself. Some examples will illustrate. In France, Marcel Lefebvre, a renegade a Catholic bishop, was condemned to a fine almost $1,000 under the French law for declares that when the Moslem presence becomes in stronger France, "the this is your women, your girls, your children that will be removed and will be led of a certain type of place as they exist in [Morocco]." To Canada, a Christian activist distributing Protestant leaflets the Moslem persecution of Christians was accused by the Moslem organizations of "inciting hate," found guilty to break the laws of hate speech of Canada, and condemned at 240 o'clock service of community and six months of time of probation in the prison. To the united Nations, the clearly "blasphemy" of attributes of nondiplomatic and "the slander of Islam" became the party of normal speech, using the convenient instruments to extinguish discussion of such unpleasant questions as such slavery to Soudan or Moslem anti-Semitism.

To the United States, where the concept of liberty of speech is stronger than elsewhere, the First Amendment always prevents the government himself to condemn to a fine or imprisons does not import that for the shocking speech. But, in cash on the philosophy of political exactness that had for result such shortened First liberties of Amendment as the speech of university code of and the restrictive practical others, Islamists try to win what punishes they are able others to censor. Thus, they subsidized recently a resolution of Senate that innocent pretence authorized "Supporting Religious Tolerance Towards Moslem". This resolution declares as a fact that "Moslem were exposed, simply because of their faith, to the acts of discrimination and to the harassment that took well too often to the violence hate inspired," and concludes that the critic of Islam, although legal in the strict direction, is morally reprehensible ("the Senate recognizes that the individuals and the organizations that encourage such intolerance create an atmosphere of And of fear that divides the Nation"). Have this resolution pass, and there is every reason to foresee that it did, does not import that with does not import what the negative one to say Islam or of Islamism can count to be accused to encourage a hate crime.

Who, in the American context, is behind this country of mental intimidation and of what, in a journalistic context, would be called the previous restriction? Among the a lot of candidates, to take it that the one is surely the Counsel on Islamic American Relations (CAIR), an institution of founded washington-based in 1994. CAIR himself presents to the world as an organization of civil rights of norm problem, of which the mission is "to promote the interest and understanding among the general public in the matter of Islam and Moslem and directs in North America of the educational services".

Sometimes, in fact, this is that CAIR does. In 1997, for example, it protested when an officer to a meeting of a counsel of education said to Caroline of the South, "To Screw on the buddhist ones and kill the Moslems". To the other times, it came to the defense of women that lost their jobs to be anxious to carry a scarf, or of men to carry beards. But these good occasional works serve especially as a cover for the true program of CAIR, that seems to be doubly: to help the Hamas of radical organization in his terror country against Israel, and promote the program of Islamist to the United States.

In the pursuit of the first objective, CAIR does go out uniformly "the action alarms" to launch dozens or same of the hundreds of protests, a lot of them vulgar and aggressive, when does not import that dares to suggest publicly that Hamas or the other networks of rrorist of work you to the United States, or dares to support in fact those that says such things. When Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for the Boston Globe, Protested the effort almost of successful CAIR to have Steven Emerson put to the index of the National public Radio, CAIR bent on his country letter shouting ("Dear Jew," went a characteristic missive of a lacquered CAIR, "How to dare slanders you Islam. . . . There is to continue enough Moslem Banging, I am sure that your to resign will not do a difference to our Jew [sic] the media") and, in a little raw intimidation, threatened the Globe with the legal action.

The defense of CAIR of violence of Islamist takes others form also: picketing it The New ones of Morning of paved to reveal the infrastructure of Hamas, launching to the Texas a country against the Tampa Tribune To discover the network of Islamic Jihad in this city. The group fulminated against the Newspaper of the Medical American Association to examine the medical condition of victims of terrorism, and against a magazine of the children, The Weekly current events of Reader, To publish equipment on the international terrorism. CAIR denounced the The Atlantic Monthly To publish an item on the violence of Islamist to Soudan, and an Under Committee of Senate to hold an audience on "the Foreign Terrorists in America: Five Years After the World Trade Center Bombarding".

As for his other objective - promoting Islamism to the United States - the homes of CAIR on only the tactics to try to do be quiet those that does not import what has critical to say Islam. It attacked the Center of Wiesenthal in Los Angeles to paint Ayatollah Khomeini as an enemy that hitler-affectiant of Jews, and it went after the Condensed reader To inform the oppression of Christians in several Moslem countries. When James Jatras, an assistant of Senate, published in his private capacity a critic pricking Islam ("an evident excrescence not of the Old ones and of New Alliances but obscurity of pagan Arabia"), CAIR has gone out an announcement of full press page in the Washington Stopwatch Call his dismissal. And when To Generate Richard John Neuhaus, the author and the distinguished editors of First Things, contemporary frankly condemned Islam "resentments and the suspicions, alternating with of inferior quality the Jihad In the form of a the persecution of Christians, of international terrorism, and of dreams of driving of Israel in the sea," CAIR is passed to see the Catholic Church for "to examine" Neuhaus, and its supporters sent a waterfall to accuse insulting mail him of is "evidently mentally sick" and "doing the work of Adolf Hitler".

The least same provocations that these provoke a barrier of letters of cair-inspire that can leave the writers and the editors feeling isolated and under the seat. A pertinent example indirectly implies the peace process of Oslo. Beginning in May 1995, Yasir Arafat, having engaged negotiations with Israel, took to defend itself before the Arabic audiences while alluding enigmatically to the treaty of Hudaybiyah, signed by the Muhammad of Prophet in 628 THIS. Epousseter their books of history, the American commentators concluded especially that, in to invoke an agreement signed but then afterward broken by Muhammad when the circumstances changed, Arafat signaled that it, also, did not mean really to keep his promise. The intention of Arafat aside nevertheless it it was the suggestion that the Muhammad of Prophet had returned on his word that excited the fury of CAIR. If fascinated was the reaction when Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the editor in boss of The New American one &the amplifier; the World-wide Report, Referred in a column to "the doctrine of the Muhammad of prophet to do the treaties with the enemies while it is weak, the violent one when it is sturdy," that the magazine finished by the impression not a but two excuse.

A perfume of what CAIR and his network of writers of letter was able to produce could be gleaned this time pages of the New Republic, Where a similar declaration had been done by Yehoshua Porath, an eminent professor of history of Middle East to the University hedbraa¯que of Jerusalem. This declaration ("Muhammad broke the [Hudaybiya] the agreement eighteen months after his conclusion") provoked, according to the magazine editors, "the hundreds of insulting telephone calls, the letters, and the e-mail accusing us slander of the Prophet and worse". Among the letters published by the editors, all in their grammar and their original spellings, the one read:

You the guys should watch out, isn't that right? Because this will not continue more more, isn't that right? You should watch out that Jewish f*ing. . . To say it where it comes, isn't that right? Because you know the mother-f*the mongrel one of er, the mother - his mom is mongrel. well? It cannot talk about the Moslem fuck and you obtain your act together. . . You all. We do not want to hear more of this problem, isn't that right? Did you obtain this just one?

Another threatened more:

The Jews of return in the history were the ugly decievers and the GOOD PEARS OF BLOOD. . . . The this is importatn that one excuse is distributed calm the Moslem everywhere in the world. WE does not DO NEED TO SEE again that 19 AMERICAINS GO A WSAY IN THE EARTH OF THA OF THE PROPHETE,,, WE TO DO ?????? ? !!!!! ! I say this because the Moslems never will tolerate the actions of the Jews again their religion. And articels as these contributes in the future loss of life of Anmericans everywhere in the Islamic world. . . . We have some laughs Jews disgusting flying our earths, and slander all HOLY concepts that we have. Please, save the lives of few Americans while distributing your excuse.

Which comes me to my own case. In the environment of-1999, I published items in the Los Angeles Time and the National post (Toronto) underlining the distinction between, on one hand, traditional Moslem that goes silent of their matters and asks only to be allowed practicing their faith, and, on the other and radical Islamists with their program to transform the corporation in the picture of their convictions. In the response, CAIR launched fifteen separated assaults on me in the space of two months. A lot of these, attaining completely return to 1983, quoted quotations done at random of the items and books to charge me with my own mouth, or my not very flattering revived estimations of my work by of others. A bulletin attempted to demolish an item that I had written treaty of Hudaybiya - although, in contrast to the other American commentators, I had found that "Muhammad was technically in its rights to repeal the treaty". The flank was entitled "the Pipes of Daniel Spatter Prophet Muhammad" : word fighter for a lot of Moslems.

Pass on by Internet, the assaults of CAIR widely also were reprinted in the Moslem editions, inciting dozens of letters, of a manner crushing negative, to the two newspapers that had carried my items. The such a letter urged me be in line with sensitiveness training (to CAIR, naturally), while of others marked me with the hard names ("the sectarian and the racist"), compared to me the Ku Klux Klan and the nedonazi, or characterized my writings as an "atrocity" filled with "the pure poison" and "the absolute lies". More more in a manner more alarming, the letters accused me or to commit a hate crime against Moslems or to promote and to encourage such crimes. Not not and they did attain vague threats: "Is ready Pipes to reply to the Creator for his hate or are it a secular humanist. . . ? It will discover soon".

I do not want to leave the impression that CAIR represents the only The opinion to be found in the Moslem community, or here or abroad. Shaykh Abdad Had Palazzi, for example, general of secretary of the Association and the Italian Moslem director of the Cultural Institute of the Italian Moslem Community, in fact denounced to Rome CAIR for claiming falsely to represent the entire Moslem community while in the reality is bent on the launch "the hate countries against the journalists, the Representatives, the Senators, and Moslem that interferes with [his] true ". Which is more, Shaykh Palazzi recommended me and Steven Emerson to dare to challenge the Islamists; although it "is not agreed with [our] the attitude towards Islam in particular and with [our] the vision of the secular world usually," nevertheless we are to be rented to distinguish "authentic Islam of the false picture presented by the Islamists" - of that, the Shaykh concludes pointument, Moslem themselves "are the victims Principal".

But Shaykh Palazzi the one is among only some voices of reason and of health of spirit. In the universe of Moslems that speaks and writes Islam and his position in the modern world, the Islamists have by far the over. That is not only a big tragedy for Moslems, but a danger to the remainder of us. For if the Islamists have their manner, any possibility to speak the truth not only of them but of Islam that himself will be seized. In fact, in a certain measure, as in to put it to the close index successful of Steven Emerson to the public National Radio, it already was.

Bernard Lewis, the learned fame of Islam and the Middle East, noted with the bitterness that while, in a country of Christian majority as the United States, a biographer of anglais-langue of Jesus appreciates the total latitude to say that it will do and as it will do, his counterpart treating a biography of Muhammad must look at craintifment on his shoulder every step of the manner. Of my own writing, a protested correspondent to the National post: "The this is is interesting to me as a Moslem American to hear you, a Moslem no, talks about Islam as an expert without you consultant first with a Moslem American organization as CAIR for an example, obtain their opinion of what you are about to to print". In of other terms, the one is perfectly free to express an opinion of Islam, provided that the one approved its contents in advance with the Islamists - almost the position that prevails now to Iran.

What the Islamists demand, in runs, is that the United States take a step gigantic towards to apply in its borders the condemnations of law Islamic (the ) Himself. A basic premise of this body of law is that person, and especially not not Moslem, ouvertement can discuss certain subjects - certain of the same subjects, as it arrives, that CAIR wishes to return the taboo. Nevertheless absurd this can seem of an offhand observer - Moslem, after all, to form, to the more, 2 percent of the American population - the is a fact that, when the guard of the democratic majority is lowered, the resolved minorities in the pursuit of anti-democratic objectives can obtain sometimes their manner.