Blogging the democratic revolution
When I went to Venezuela late last year, I came back with the impression that it was heading well into Jim Jones territory. There was too much cult of personality there, starting with the gigantic Hugo Chavez billboard that greets you from Caracas airport before you take the highway into the shantytowns, and within the…
A The Belmont Club Richard Fernandez discusses the propaganda of Islamic radicals who, at the moment, are ten steps ahead of the West in terms of spreading its message. The speed at which the message is spreading, the reach that it is attaining, and the sheer quantity cannot hope to be matched by the bureaucratic…
A procession to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe in Palm Springs Source: The Desert Sun At this time of year, millions of people participate in processions like this across the American hemisphere, an event that unites two American continents, Spain and the Philippines. On or around Dec. 10, millions will march for the feast of…
The Taliban’s barbaric destruction of the centuries’ old Bamiyan Buddhas Source: Vers un Sens de la Vie Remember the 2001 brazen destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas? Right in front of the world’s face, the filthy, foul Taliban, led by the mascara-loving Mullah Omar, smashed this irretrievable masterpiece of human hands, an ancient artwork that inspired…
Adam Gadahn Source: AFP, via Yahoo! News Al-Qaida released a video of a local American, Adam Gadahn, inviting us all to ‘convert or die‘ to bin Laden’s perversion of Islam, following an introduction by al-Qaida monster, Dr. Zawahiri, who’s bin Laden’s Number Two. It’s not his first time in a bin-Laden video. He’s recognizable as…
There may be an Arabo-Iranian Cold War brewing, if the Arabs make themselves relevant again As the Arabs furiously try to guilt Syria into curbing Hezb Allah????????s activities and ???????rejoining??????? the Arab world, one cannot help but see an almost laughable, but certainly pathetic, last ditch attempt at salvaging what influence the Sunni Arab states…
Michael J. Totten reported a conversation with Lebanon expert Tony Badran (who blogs as “Anton Efendi at Across the Bay) about the current situation in Lebanon. Totten brings up several points in his piece, but two are especially striking. The first is Badran’s estimation that Hezb Allah has basically taken away the gains that were…
When I was in Washington, D.C. last week, I had dinner with the relatives I was staying with at their good friends’ house. These family friends happened to be Iranian. They had a son and two daughters, the boy was the youngest and the girls were about four years apart from each other. I had…
For many decades Israel has been the fundamental “enemy” of the Muslim Arab world, viewed as an abberation imposed on them by Western imperialist forces. Nowadays things are a bit different. Pan-Arabism is dead only to be revived on special occassions, like Friday or when Mubarak’s poll numbers are dropping. No one fights really hard…
Islamism defeats itself. Every time. This is a simple observation. Take the recent take over of the Somali capital by Islamic militias. This illustrates the archetypical Islamist power grab scenario: in a nation wrought with chaos and violence, and lacking strong leaders of principle, Islamic leaders with machine guns move in to give a desperate…
I hate Islamists. You know the deal. But if you don’t, it’s at the end of every news article about Algeria: “Algeria’s civil war between the military and Islamist militas began in 1992 after the military halted elections that the Islamist FIS was poised to win took over 150,000 lives . . . blah blah…
Dear old Gus Dur of Indonesia is the one of the best Muslims I have ever known. He’s a holy man whose life of prayer reflects vividly in the life he leads. He is humble, gentle, kindly and noble. I used to talk to him back in Jakarta, years ago, before he became Indonesia’s first…
Can a civilized nation tolerate a crowd of people who let themselves be led by the nose by sheikhs, dervishes and the like . . . and who entrust their faith and their lives to fortunetellers, magicians, witch-doctors, and writers of amulets? *** Countries may vary, but civilization is one and for a nation to…
The Egyptian immam Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi made an appearence in Tizi-Ouzou, Kabylia (in the Tizi-Ouzou wilaya) today. Qaradawi, who has a television show on Al-Jazeera (esh-Sharieh wal-Hayat) and founded IslamOnline, recently debated Amr Khaled on the Dansih cartoon controversy (he took the “let us show rage” side of the debate), and openly supports suicide bombings,…
One hundred thousand people gathered in Rome to remember the first anniversary of the death of John Paul II, the Polish pope who helped liberate Eastern Europe from communism. Thousands of others gathered in Krakow and around Poland. John Paul was a democratic revolutionary in the purest sense of the idea. Many of us know…
Abdul Rahman, the Afghan convert who risked death for ‘apostasy’, has been granted political asylum in Italy, where he arrived overnight. It would be great if he might be able to get in touch with us Italian activists once he’ll be living over here with the due protection. In the meantime, and totally off topic,…
Imagine for a second that you’re the head of a secular authoritarian regime in the Middle East. The West is pressuring you to liberalize your political system, but elections are bringing to power grassroots Islamist groups who are looking to take you out of power. The root of this, you realize, could always be due…
Rage across the Muslim world persists and grows for another week over cartoons published in a Danish paper depicting the prophet Muhammed. It has culminated in violent protests with chants of death, the burning of embassies, and a round of condemnations from governments in the region. Meanwhile, in Europe, the cartoons have been reproduced by…
Islamofascist fanatics have set fire to the Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Chilean embassies in Damascus, blaming all four for the Danish cartoons that offended Koranic commands not to make graven images of religious figures in a bid to halt idolatry. Anyone who looks at those cartoons can be pretty sure he wouldn’t be tempted to…
Christmas is barely legal in Fidel Castro’s monstrous dictatorship in Cuba, and this year more than most. There is a sullen, sad atmosphere in Havana these days, partly from want, and partly from the sour, tired nature of the regime on its last legs. That’s why Val Prieto at Babalu blog came up with the…
In one of his finest posts, Daniel in Yaracuy province describes the curious reverse phenomenon now seen in Venezuela under the Hugo Chavez regime: the effort to eradicate all symbols of secularism and holiday cheer in Venezuela, in favor of a highly politicized, chavista-cized more ancient Christian model. It’s a strike against globalization and the…
As the French riots near the two-week point – 13 nights now – there is a debate both as to whether a moderate drop-off in violence Tuesday means it is winding down or just fluctuating, as well as the broader question of what the riots mean socially and religiously for France. The purpose of this…
Singapore arrested two bloggers for making offensive-to-Islam remarks on their blogs, with charges of contributing to religious hatred. The de-facto state-controlled Singapore tabloid, The Electric New Paper, breathily noted that this pair also even was ‘said to contain vulgarities.’ In Singapore they have laws against that kind of thing. I am an ex-Singapore resident who…
Three attacks on the Church from the hemisphere’s Marxist Axis in two days makes me think there may be a coordinated effort by Chavez-Castro & Friends to confront the Church. Given the weak state of the Church in most of the world, it’s hard to grasp why dictators should see it as such a threat…
‘Christian’ televangelist Pat Robertson generated unprecedented headlines about Hugo Chavez in the blogosphere and in the U.S. media Tuesday when he publicly called for the assassination of the Venezuelan dictator. Technorati listed it as its top search on the blogosphere. Google listed it as its top story worldwide in all categories and ran it as…