Germany Clamps Down on Antisemitism
German chancellor photo credit: ap THE MASTER RACE
The German government is considering denying citizenship to anyone they consider an antisemite.
Germany’s interior minister Nancy Faeser said that she is drafting a “new citizenship law, which we will now discuss in the Bundestag, provided a clear exclusion of antisemites."
Well, what do they consider antisemite? A Hamas supporter. And how do they define Hamas supporter? If recent actions are any indication, Germany defines anyone supporting Palestinians as a supporter of Hamas. Clearly that is not the same.
Germany has cracked down on pro-Palestinian demonstrations in cities and schools in recent weeks. The Berlin school district has also banned “visibly wearing relevant clothing (for example, the kuffiyeh known as the Palestinian scarf), displaying stickers and patches with inscriptions such as ‘free Palestine’ or a map of Israel in the colors of Palestine (white, red, black, green), and shouting ‘free Palestine!’ and demonstrating verbal support for Hamas and its terrorism.”
In the U.S., Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott echoed this sentiment and proposed deporting university students who support Palestinians.
But can you condemn Hamas and still support the lives of Palestinians? No. Apparently you cannot if you want to live in Germany and the U.S.
Kevin Barrett Is Islam a Religion of Obscurantism or Liberation?
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Thu, 26 Oct 2023 at 21:47
Is Islam a Religion of Obscurantism or Liberation? My response to RT (the reader, not Russia Today)
A reader, Robert Tate, requested my response to his long comment. He raised some interesting issues. “The Arabs colonised Spain for several centuries, and tolerance was relative. It depended on which dynasty and ruler, the Almohads forced natives to convert to Islam.” The brief episode of persecution of Jews and Christians under the Almohads was a highly unusual exception. During the vast majority of the 700 years of Muslim rule in al-Andalus, rulers honored the Qur’an’s ban on forced conversions. Islamic scholarly consensus agrees that “no compulsion in religion” (al-Baqara 256) bans forced conversions. That is true not only of al-Andalus, but everywhere else Muslims have ruled. Islamophobes cherry-pick the extremely rare exceptions. Such anecdotal arguments are obviously fallacious, and all scholars agree that Islam bans forced conversions in theory, and in practice has done vastly less force-converting than Christianity has. Revolts of Christians like in Toledo were ruthlessly put down, with thousands beheaded. All revolts against rulers typically end in the gruesome deaths of the rebels (or, very rarely, the rulers). That has nothing to do with religion. In any case, I never heard of the incident you’re describing, and can’t easily find it by searching for “thousands of rebels beheaded in Toledo, Spain.” Can you provide a source? In Muslim lands Christians can never have equal rights as Islam is considered supreme, this is one of the main reason for conversions in Bosnia and Egypt. It was a way of paying less taxes. It’s true that in an Islamic society, Christians and Muslims don’t have identical rights and responsibilities. It’s also true that in a secular society, religious people can never have “equal rights” (meaning having their views determine the social rules as much as the secularists’ views do). So every society has a consensus, and those outside the consensus can never have “equal rights.” But Christian and Jewish minorities have typically thrived under Islamic rule, despite their having different rights and responsibilities from Muslims. Under Islamic rule, Christian communities can mostly set and enforce their own rules. For instance, they are free to drink alcohol and eat pork, even though the Qur’an bans those products and views them as abominations. And Christians will certainly be allowed, under Islamic rule, to outlaw practices like abortion, sodomy, obscenity, pornography, gender-bending, insulting Jesus, and so on. Additionally, Christians and Jews are exempt from Islam’s 2.5% zakat tax on income and wealth—a huge tax. (If it were applied to US billionaires today, their taxes would be greatly increased.) Instead of Zakat, Christians and Jews pay a jizya tax, which in theory should be more or less equivalent to zakat. In practice it has sometimes been more, for obvious political reasons, but also because Christian and especially Jewish communities were typically wealthier, per capita, than the Muslims! But the jizya has often been less than what the same Christians and Jews paid under Christian rule. For that reason, many Jews and Christians have supported Islamic takeovers of corrupt, persecuting, high-tax-levying Christian governments, like the 7th century Byzantines and 8th century Visigoths in Spain. Muslim rulers take over, lower taxes, and protect all the squabbling sects from each other. What’s not to like? I have never been able to work out whether Islam is a religion of obscurantism or liberation, you will have to explain it to me some day. It’s certainly not obscurantist, though unfortunately there are plenty of nominal Muslims who are obscurantists. As for liberation, it depends what you mean by that. Worldly liberation? No matter how good in theory (and Islam is very good) in practice a religion is only as good as its adherents. Just as not every Christian society has always turned the other cheek and followed their prophet of peace, likewise not every Muslim society has lived up to Islamic ideals of justice. Even though Islam certainly favors, and even insists on, justice on Earth, its successes have been relative and temporary. But every authentic revealed religion is more about spiritual liberation than worldly liberation. As the Buddha noticed, liberation from worldly tyranny is trivial compared to liberation from suffering and death. Here’s what I wrote on Quora a while ago: Q: If "And My Mercy embraces all things." (Al-A`raf 7:156) Then Why Do Innocents Suffer? A: There are two theological answers to this question. The first is the non-traditional approach of Process Theology. According to process theology, God is supremely powerful (more powerful than anything that isn’t God) but not omnipotent. If God was fully omnipotent, say the process theologians, He would not allow the suffering of innocents, because He is absolutely Good. The second and more traditional answer, which I accept because it accords with the Qur’an and my intuition and experience, is that suffering and its opposites (ecstasy, inner peace, and so on) are part of a continuum, and that God in his infinite mercy has tilted the playing field away from the latter toward the former. Creation is both just and merciful, but it leans towards mercy: "And My Mercy embraces all things." (Al-A`raf 7:156) "My mercy prevails over my wrath." "إن رحمتي سبقت غضبي” (Bukhari-Hadith Qudsi) But how can God’s mercy be embracing even innocents who suffer? Because we don’t see the full reality. Just as Jesus’s suffering and death was ultimately an illusion, so too is all suffering and death. Life in the dunya is relatively trivial, “a game and a distraction." انما هذه الدنيا لهو ولعب All souls taste death كُلُّ نَفْسٍۢ ذَآئِقَةُ ٱلْمَوْتِ ۗ وَنَبْلُوكُم بِٱلشَّرِّ وَٱلْخَيْرِ فِتْنَةًۭ ۖ وَإِلَيْنَا تُرْجَعُونَ ٣٥ "Every soul will taste death. And We test you ˹O humanity˺ with good and evil as a trial then to Us you will ˹all˺ be returned.” (Al-Anbya: 21:35) Our taste of death is both a trial (like everything else in human experience) and, finally, a blessing. We leave the relative trivialities of this life for the serious business of the next world. But get this: How we dealt with the games and distractions of this life determines how we experience eternity in the next! In other words, the dunya (this earthly world) WAS important! But how can we reconcile the dunya’s importance with its triviality? Answer: The important thing is to recognize the dunya’s triviality while you are still alive. This is what Buddhists call “non-attachment.” It is absolutely crucial that you develop non-attachment to the dunya while you are in the dunya. That is what you are here for. That is the crux of the test Allah is giving you. If you can let go of ٱلنَّفْسَ لَأَمَّارَةٌۢ بِٱلسُّوٓءِ (the soul that commands evil) and surrender to God (اسلام) you will experience ٱلنَّفْسُ ٱلْمُطْمَئِنَّةُ (the peaceful soul) and ultimately return to God by the good road not the bad road and experience the garden not the fire. Innocents who suffer, as it turns out, may experience terrible things in this world, but they will also experience an overwhelming dose of God’s mercy when they make the transition to the better and more lasting next one. Always happy to listen to your shows and read your articles. Thank you, always (well, sometimes) happy to take your questions ; - ) Invite your friends and earn rewards??? 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