Are we growing a hostile culture in our midst?

[Argus]

Part of this was developed on another thread, but I felt that it deserved more attention.

The events in London raise several critical question which no one seems to have the stomach to express openly or deal with.

The growth of home-grown terrorism of this nature relies on groups which are alienated from the mainstream and feel little or no kinship or shared vision with those around them.

In a recent poll in the UK, the Telegraph found that large numbers of Muslims felt alienated from the mainstream, and many Muslims (though a small number percentage-wise) supported terrorism, even against their own country.

Telegraph survey

Britain has probably taken the lead in the world in being politically correct, being sensitive to newcomers, and protecting them from unpleasant or unflattering viewpoints from those around them. Hate and discrimination laws are pretty sweeping and stringently enforced, and the Labour government has gone well out of its way to express its support for multiculturalism and for the distinct and seperate cultural value set of ethnic and religious minorities. Despite that, or should we say, because of that, many young Muslims feel little attachment to their own nation. Instead, they think of themselves as Muslims, and not British. Freedom of religion and speech laws have allowed large numbers of radical Muslim clerics to incite hatred against Christians and Jews, and helped develop an "us against them" mentality.

So you have small, but growing minorities who are divorced from the nation around them, people whose lives are devoted to Islam (for Islam does not accept any notion of secularism) being harrangued by extremist clerics - most of whom are foreign born, most of whom are trained in extremist schools funded by the Saudi government with its extremist arch-conservative religious philosophy.

"The wahhabi outreach goes beyond the Muslim world. In March 2002 Ain al-Yaqeen, an official Saudi magazine, wrote that the royal family wholly or partly funded some 210 Islamic centers, 1,500 mosques, 202 colleges and 2,000 schools in countries without Muslim majorities. Cambodia is one such place. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, Cambodia's Muslims, who make up 5% of the population, turned to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to help rebuild their mosques and schools. Accompanying the aid were teachers from those countries, with the result that today 10% to 15% of Cambodian Muslims are Wahhabis. Many go to Saudi Arabia to study. "They come back and are filled with fire and want to change the way we do things," says Soi Ponyamin, a commune chief in the village of Svay Khleang.

"Saudi proselytizers are also interested in Muslims in the U.S. and other Western countries. Says Antoine Sfeir, the Lebanese-born editor of the Parisian quarterly Notebooks of the East: "Their message to Muslims in Europe and America is so extreme and intolerant: 'Do not accept their ways, and do not consider yourself as one of them. You only exist as a Muslim, respecting Muslim values alone.'" Abdulaziz Sachedina, a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia who spent much of his career in Canada, says that most Sunni community centers in Canada receive Saudi funding. Carl Sharif El-Tobgui, a Ph.D. student at McGill University's Institute for Islamic Studies, which specializes in the worldwide spread of Islamic culture, estimates that 10% to 20% of Canada's 580,000 Muslims adhere to Wahhabism. "

Should we not be concerned at the growth of this type of religious philosophy in Canada being fanned by another nation? Should we be permitting its growth and funding when its philosophy seems to hostile to us and everything we stand for? And what kind of community is is it going to develop if left unchecked?

Last autumn, Hindy dropped something of a bombshell when he told CanWest New Service that Saudi Arabia usually funds the building of mosques and helps pay the salaries of most clerics in Canada through the Saudi-run World Muslim League.

That seemed to fit with a report issued in September that said Saudi Arabia's funding of mosques and Islamic schools is making Canada's Muslims vulnerable to "extremist influences" that could threaten the country's national security.

The study for the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal by national security expert Martin Rudner of Carleton University said Saudi money is being used to extend its brand of militant Islam to Canada and foster the spread of terrorism.

"Many, if not most, Arab and Muslim religious and education institutions in this country are still financed largely by Islamic charitable organizations based in Saudi Arabia. Saudi funding brought with it teachers, clerics and materials that infused Diaspora mosques, schools, publications and other communal institutions with an extremist and militant Islamic purview, characteristic of the Wahhabi creed," Mr. Rudner writes.

These are all quotes with regard to the extent of Saudi Wahabi prostletizing efforts in Canada. Full cites are available on another thread. So we have a growing community with foreign values which has been encouraged by the government not to discard those values but to cherish them, and not to blend in but to retain their "distinctness" being bombarded with messages hostile to us and inciting it to violence. Where do their loyalties lie?

I would like to refer to a Freedom House survey conducted recently where Arabic speaking Muslim volunteers entered scores of Mosques in America and took away books, pamphlets and other material to study.

"A January 28, 2005 report from Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom, which revealed that what is being taught in those mosques: “material promoting hatred, intolerance, and violence within United States mosques and Islamic centers.” What’s more, “these publications are often official publications of a Saudi ministry or distributed by the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C.” One tract featured in the report tells Muslims: “Be dissociated from the infidels, hate them for their religion, leave them, never rely on them for support, do not admire them, and always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law.” A high school textbook makes it absolutely clear where such teaching leads: “To be true Muslims, we must prepare and be ready for jihad in Allah’s way. It is the duty of the citizen and the government. The military education is glued to faith and its meaning, and the duty to follow it.”

Recently Spain announced it would begin to monitor what is being taught in Islamic schools and what is being preached in Mosques, and that it would take over the funding of mosques to prevent "outside influences" - meaning Saudi Arabia, from turning local Muslims against their own country. There are serious suggestioins in the UK, even among Labour Party MPs and those who once fully supported multiculturalism that something has to be done to help integrate Muslims and other immigrant/ethnic groups into British society.

To what extent, I wonder, are these problems about to become ours? We are behind the curve in terms of our growing Muslim population, but headed in the same direction as Britain and Spain. We know the same influences are here. We know that some, at least, in Canada, support terrorism, and have taken part in it (fortunately outside our borders). Do we need to do more to integrate Muslims into Canadian society? Do we need to prevent foreign money from coming into Canada to support a religious philosophy which is hostile towards us? I would say yes to both questions.

[kimmy]

It is, as I said in another thread, the proverbial "elephant in the room," the subject that is too large and obvious to ignore, yet to awkward and uncomfortable for people to address.

It should be of concern that the Wahhabi branch of Islam is the one spreading so quickly thanks to generous funding from the Saudis. A Christian analogy might be ... imagine if the Snake-Handlers had near-infinite sums of money to spread their faith. The tenets of the Wahhabi branch of Islam are to reject modern ideas. I won't elaborate here; there is a wealth of information about Wahhabi political and social views available to anyone who cares to do a little research. I simply request that anybody who wishes to stick up for the Wahhabis do some reading before they take up the issue.

What to do? I honestly don't know.

We do have our own zealots right here in Canada. Recall Sheikh Younus Kathrada from Vancouver, whose hate-fueled anti-Jewish rantings came to light only after the accidental publicity Kathrada's mosque gained when one of his flock turned up dead in Chechnya after fighting Russian troops. We don't actually know how many more we have in Canada; we might not find out until it's too late.

-k