Have we forgotten the Black Muslims?

Just one more thing before we close down WWW for the weekend.

It may have escaped the attention of a lot of people -- because the PC lamestream media don't like to draw attention to it -- but the fact is that Amedy Coulibaly, the accomplice of the Kouachi brothers who executed a policewoman on Wednesday as well the hostages taken in what France's president called an anti-Semitic attack on a kosher market on Thursday, was black. And Muslim. Yes, a black Muslim, and that's the truth.

According to a police source, he and the Kouachi brothers were all members of the same Paris jihadist cell that sent French fighters to Iraq a decade ago. France's L'Obs reports that Coulibaly spent time with Chérif Kouachi when they were both in prison in Fleury-Mérogis between 2005 and 2006.

Politicians and the lamestream press have been pissing and moaning about how this kind of thing could happen anywhere, which justifies the need for greater security, as well as greater efforts to integrate the self-segregating Muslims into the mainstream Western society, yada yada yada.

Indeed, there have been murderous attacks on innocent people, Muslims as well as non-Muslims, within the ten weeks last past in Canada, Australia, and France, not forgetting Nigeria, where a 10-year-old suicide bomber blew herself to Paradise along with 19 others, just today. And the trial of another Islamist fanatic for the Boston marathon bombing is about to get under way. So yes, it can happen anywhere, including the Paranoid States of America.

Oddly, though, there has been no mention, so far, of the Black Muslims. Have we forgotten about them? Several groups of "Afro-American" Muslim brothers are encompassed by the term "Black Muslims", but the one most people should remember -- especially in light of this week's events -- is the self-styled "Nation of Islam".

The Nation of Islam is a religious movement founded in Detroit by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad on July 4, 1930. Its stated goals are "to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African Americans in the United States". However, its critics accuse it of being black supremacist and anti-Semitic.

After its founder mysteriously disappeared in June 1934, the Nation of Islam was led by Elijah Muhammad, on whose watch it split into a number of splinter groups. The most notable departure from the ranks was that of Malcolm X, who left to become Sunni Muslim. After Elijah Muhammad's death, his son Warith Deen Mohammed changed the name of the organization to "World Community of Islam in the West".

In 1977, Louis Farrakhan rejected Warith Deen Mohammed's leadership and re-established the Nation of Islam on the original model. He took over the Nation of Islam's headquarter Temple, Mosque Maryam, located in Chicago. The ultra-liberal, ultra-PC Southern Poverty Law Center designates the Nation of Islam as a hate group for its "racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-gay rhetoric".

Walt wonders what Louis Farrakhan has to say about this week's events in France and Nigeria. The silence from Chicago has so far been deafening.

Steyn and Murphy on the Charlie Hebdo massacre and free speech

A couple of days ago, writing about the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the PC-fed reluctance of the Western media to point the finger at Islamic jihadists, I said I could hardly wait for Mark Steyn to weigh in on the topic.

Well, now he has. Check out "#JeSuisCharlie - But You're Not". The post on Mark's own website includes a 28-minute dialogue between Mr. Steyn, Mohamed El Rashidy (director of the Canadian Arab Federation) and Evan Solomon on CBC-TV's Power and Politics -- well worth a look and a listen.

Walt also recommends "We are not Charlie Hebdo" by reliable Rex Murphy, in today's National Post. Sample: Why do we wallow in some shallow hollow of factitious guilt, moaning over our failings to “understand” after 9/11, after Mumbai, after London, after Ottawa, after Paris this week, rather than laying the guilt on the real perpetrators and the ideology that fires them? 

If we will not speak for free speech when it is shut down by special interests, protestors of the politically correct, on campuses and in newspapers, we manifest that we are not serious about free speech. There is no “we” after the killings. There are very few worthy of that claim … and, alas, under the shout of allahu akbar, 12 of them are now quite dead.

Right on, Rex!

Western leaders finally admit Muslims are waging jihad against us

In an unusually clear statement of fact, Canadian Prime Minister Harper said on Friday that the "international jihadist movement" -- yes, those were his words -- has declared war on countries around the world. But, he said, people around the world showed they won't be intimidated by "jihadist terrorists."

In his first public comments about yesterday's attack on the Paris office of the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo, in which 12 people were murdered, Mr. Harper said "When a trio of hooded men struck at some of our most cherished democratic principles -- freedom of expression, freedom of the press -- they assaulted democracy everywhere. Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of people around the world and in cities across [Canada] openly demonstrated that we will not be intimidated by jihadist terrorists."

Walt trusts he was not including to the cowardly and politically correct English-Canadian media, which -- with the commendable exception of the National Post -- decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and refrained from showing or printing even one of the cartoons which the Islamic terrorists denounced as "insulting to the Prophet Mohammed". See "The religion that must not be satirized... on pain of death!", posted here on Thursday.

But I digress. As I fired up the old Commodore 64, my aim was to place this week's atrocities in context. In "The war against ISIS explained... again... seriously, this time" (WWW 14/11/14), I called the latest US-led invasion of Iraq another phase of the "Oil Wars". But there's more to this than the American imperialism which I condemned just this Monday in "Why the Middle East hates the West - Part III".

Mr. Harper's statement reminds me that I neglected to address, except in passing, the fact that the Paris attacks are merely the latest battle of a religious war. A "jihad" is a "holy war", and the three jihadists are (by their own choice) casualties of the war of Islam against all infidels, including Christians and (particularly) Jews.

France's president, François Hollande, rightly described the killing of Jewish hostages at a kosher grocery store as "an anti-Semitic act", which should remind us that the fundamentalist Muslims are sworn enemies of the earlier Abrahamic religions, Christianity and Judaism, against whom they have fought for control of the Holy Land... and the world... right from the beginning. Walt recommends [for the second time this week! Ed.] a column by the National Post's Christie Blatchford: When push comes to shove, isn’t it curious how it’s always about the Jews?

History -- if anyone is left to write it -- may struggle to pinpoint the date on which the Great Islamic Jihad began. Perhaps the Americans started it, with Operation Desert Storm, or the invasion of Iraq, or the invasion of Afghanistan. Or perhaps it goes all the way back to the Crusades, or earlier.

When the holy war against the West started doesn't matter. We are now in the middle of it, and the Islamic fanatics are bringing the battle from the sandpit of the Middle East to our very doorsteps. This is the burden of a message received today from the Fatima Center, which Walt thinks worth posting here. [Minor edits and emphasis are mine.]

A spray of bullets, the cry of “Allahu Akbar!”, and a scene of horror, with dead bodies giving their mute and gruesome testimony to the barbarism that is engulfing what were once the nations of Christendom – this was the scene in Paris on January 7 at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical publication that dared to mock Islam.

The usual and quite useless responses were forthcoming. The French Bishops Conference spoke of maintaining the “fragile fellowship” of a diverse society. Pope Francis observed that man can be cruel (no mention of Islam) and asked for prayers for the victims. And there were those who lamented the failure to respect the rights of free speech. There were even some who tentatively suggested that the dead were to be faulted for disrespecting a particular religious sentiment, while formally condemning the violence as nevertheless inappropriate or unjustified (but understandable). And, of course, there were cheers among the jihadists for another slaughter of the infidels.

The Fatima Center tells the plain truth that the world is unwilling to hear: We are engaged in a war, a final battle, between good and evil, with Our Lady opposed by Satan. If we wish to fight on the side of the good, we must do so under the banner of Our Lady of Fatima. We cannot defeat an implacable enemy by an appeal to tolerance or free speech or the desirability of diversity.

There is in liberalism, which has come to dominate the West, a refusal to recognize that certain things are irreconcilable. There are situations in which one has no choice but to fight or be vanquished. This desire to negotiate, to dialogue endlessly in the hope of reaching a mutually acceptable compromise is rooted in the illusion that there are no absolute truths. It is difficult for liberals to understand those who refuse to dialogue and would sooner kill you than negotiate a middle position.

Our Lady of Fatima came to tell us that we must choose: obey Heaven or reap the consequences. We have so far refused to obey, as the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary has yet to be performed. When it is performed by the Pope and the bishops, as Our Lady specified, we will have world peace. Scenes of carnage such as we just witnessed in Paris will be no more. Until then, we can only expect more horrors and suffering. The only practical course to follow at this point in time is to pray for the Consecration and to work for it in every way we can. Our Lady of Fatima is our only hope.

Waiting for Pope Francis's encyclical on climate change

Thanks to John Vennari, editor of Catholic Family News, for publishing a picture that's worth several thousand of Walt's words.

Charlie Hebdo shooter dreamed of being a rap star

Here, without editorial comment, are three paragraphs from a story that appeared on the Reuters wire earlier today.

Twelve years ago, one of the two brothers suspected of the shootings at satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo was a young man like many others in France, more interested in girls and smoking dope than defending the Prophet Mohammad.

But between 2003, when Cherif Kouachi delivered pizzas and dreamed of being a rap star, and Wednesday, when he and his brother were named chief suspects in the killing of 12 people in Paris, the French national went from punk to most wanted.

In a 2005 France 3 documentary, which includes footage taken at a Paris community centre, Kouachi is seen rapping in English, in jeans and a baggy sweatshirt, a baseball hat worn backwards on his head.

Note from Ed.: Walt told me there should be no editorial comment, but I can't resist asking who will be the one to sing "I shot the Chérif"?

Meanwhile, in Nigeria, militant Islamists wipe out town of 10,000

The world... well, the Western world, at least... is getting mightily exercised about the death of a dozen French men and women, executed by two Islamic extremists for "insulting the Prophet". Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National, says there is no more time for denial and hypocrisy.

Fingers are being pointed at Islamic fundamentalism, and rightly so, but the problem of coping with millions of outsiders who do not (in spite of what François Hollande and the Pope keep saying) share our core values.

The politically correct message is that not all Muslims are like that. Maybe so. Maybe... maybe... 99% of the followers of the Prophet wouldn't arm themselves with AK-47s and go out hunting infidels. That would leave just 1% -- 50,000 residents of France -- who might threaten the peace of that country. Food for thought...

Meanwhile, the militant Islamists who call themselves Boko Haram -- it means "Western education is forbidden" -- are laying waste to great swathes of northern Nigeria. They control 70% of Borno, the state worst-affected by their insurgency.

Today, a senior government official in the area said that fleeing residents told him that the town of Baga, which had a population of about 10,000, was now "virtually non-existent".

Musa Alhaji Bukar told the BBC's Hausa service, the town had been burnt down. Those who fled reported that they had been unable to bury the dead, and hundreds of corpses littered the town's streets, he said, adding that Boko Haram is now in control of Baga and 16 neighbouring towns after the Nigerian military fled.

The people of northern Nigeria are predominantly Muslim. Most of the 2000 or so people massacred by Boko Haram last year were Muslims -- the peaceful, non-violent kind. The Muslims who have joined the ranks of the Islamic extremists is certainly less than 1%. More food for thought.

The religion that must not be satirized... on pain of death!

In yesterday's second post on the assassination of Charlie Hebdo, Walt drew attention to the craven refusal of the lamestream media to draw attention to the fact that the terrorists being hunted for the murders of a dozen people are Muslims of North African ancestry. Instead, all we hear is calls for brotherhood and unity, as if the massacre had nothing to do with the perps' ethnicity or religious motivation.

Why is the fact that the murderers are Islamic extremists being downplayed? Political correctness, of course! The Taliban, al-Qaeda and now IS have bullied Western politicians -- including Francis the Party Pope -- and media into fearing to say, let alone do anything which might possibly give offence to followers of the Prophet.

Such is the post-Christian, post-religious Western world today. It's OK to make fun of Christianity, particularly the Catholic Church and fundamentalist Protestants. Scientologists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons have all been satirized in South Park and other TV comedies. Even Judaism is fair game. The Eastern religions -- Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism -- don't even get a laugh. But the one religion that can't be touched, or even mentioned, is... dare we name it... Islam!

Islam is untouchable because our "leaders" and chattering classes have got The Fear. This goes back at least as far as 1989 (before the word "Islamophobia" was coined), when Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa (an order to Muslims to kill someone) against Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses. English writer Hanif Kureishi called the fatwa -- which is still in effect -- "one of the most significant events in postwar literary history."

The controversy over The Satanic Verses may be said to have divided Muslims from Westerners along the fault line of culture. The core Western value of freedom of expression -- that no-one "should be killed, or face a serious threat of being killed, for what they say or write" -- is now confronted by the Islamic fundamentalist commandment that no-one should be free to "insult and malign Muslims" by disparaging the "honour of the Prophet" Mohammed.

"Death to those who insult the Prophet!" is what the Islamists preach, and their followers -- including the two North African Muslims who killed the journalists of Charlie Hebdo -- are walking the talk. With a vengeance. Literally!

These thoughts have occurred not just to Walt but to others, including numerous cartoonists, commentators, journalists and writers. But so far I've heard only one make the point that political correctness to the point of fear has silenced public discussion of the issue. The CBC's senior correspondent, Neil Macdonald, spoke out on last night's edition of The National. Click here to watch "Religion, satire, and where we draw the line". Bravo, Neil, for breaking the politically correct silence.

Walt also recommends: "Terrorists have cowed us all into a ridiculous self-censorship", by the deliciously un-PC Crusty Blatchford ["Christie", surely. Ed.] in the Notional Post. ["National Post", surely. Ed.] Sample: You want to talk about common or "shared values", as just about every Western leader has done since the attack? The value most shared in the West, and perhaps in this country in particular, is timidity.