And here is a much more extended version of The Visit of the Agitated Gentlemen With Elevated Voices.
They’re fascism, alive and kicking and right in your face. I’m dumb with admiration for Irshad and her colleague (the two of them were on the stage talking when the Elevated Voices started screaming hoarsely and puffing themselves out like angry cats) who stayed calm in the face of that. I’m dumb with admiration for the woman standing protectively in front of them along with others, looking matter of fact and immovable.
I hate the Agitated Gentlemen. I hate them all. They should join a gorilla troupe and try to become alpha males there. That would keep them busy and out of our hair.
What asshats. I hope they all got arrested.
I don’t think we should wish these meatheads on a troop of harmless gorillas who haven’t done us any harm
The gorillas would squash them.
:- )
A gutsy lady:
Recognizing Irshad’s own leadership, Oprah Winfrey has honoured her with a Chutzpah Award for “audacity, nerve, boldness and conviction.” Ms. Magazine has named Irshad a “Feminist for the 21st Century.” Macleans put her on its 2004 Honor Roll of “Canadians Who Make a Difference” [from The Trouble With Islam Today; pg 258]
But incidents like that one only
… only adds weight to the argument that Islam is a totalitarian belief system that is intrinsically and fundamentally inimical to the principles of Western democracies and that its adherents should be prevented from immigrating. And that any currently in those countries should be expelled.
It sounds like these homophobic Muslim men tried to drown out the voice of the gay man talking on stage about his experiences reconciling his religion with his sexuality.
Also, whenever I see videos of such incidences from Europe, I think very highly of the police there for the way they appear to actually do their jobs nonviolently as much as possible.
Gorillas are peaceful vegetarians (mostly) and leave rather than have a confrontation with anyone.
Alpha males have heads the size of steamer trunks and look scarier than shit. Gorillas count on that so that they rarely have to fight. These rage boys would piss their pants if they ever had to deal with an annoyed gorilla. (The females aren’t as imposing but I wouldn’t care to get between one and her baby.)
Jiminy jillikers! Gentlemen?! Jerks. Jackasses. Junior jihadists.
The impression I got from the bit of English and a few other words I could make out, of the wee thug at the end, was “You should stay in Islam. We know how to fix you.”
I noticed that, too. Even here in Canada, there would be at least a dozen cops in their black uniforms and wearing their gloves, and probably with their hands at the ready on their Tazers and Glocks. The police in the video almost gave the impression of “these twits again … sigh”.
Two more things to add to the bag of goodies for people preparing to attend such events: spittle towels and big red rubber clown noses.
There’s so much to hate about the actions of those imbeciles, but also so much to love in that video.
It’s clearly not a very big meeting and the asshats to normal people ratio is approximately 1-2-1. All the asshats are fit young men and there are plenty of women or older people amongst the normals…and yet they don’t seem to be at all intimidated. In fact the initial reactions seem to be mainly amusement – you can almost see the puzzlement on the face of one of the grey haired gentlemen as if he’s thinking “Who could possibly be dumb enough to think this kind of stunt would further their cause?”.
Then there’s the gradual realisation that these guys could be psyching themselves up to actually get physical and as the nutjobs start to look like they’re going to approach the stage, one by one the normals clearly think “You’ll have to go through me matey!” and form a spontaneous human shield.
And it’s done with so much class. Apart from the one woman in the headscarf (who’s clearly embarrassed as all hell by the bruthaz), nobody eve raises their voices, never mind their fists. In complete and utter contrast to the screaming, physically intimidatory actions of the bearded weirdos, nobody does a single thing which could possibly be construed by even the most blindly partisan observer as in any way provocative.
THEY’RE SO FREAKING CALM ABOUT IT!
But the best thing about the whole video is that it was clearly filmed (and presumably published on the internet) by the nutjobs themselves. This is their propaganda! This is what they’re putting out there to show what great muslims they are. This is what they want other muslims to watch and think “yeah man, you really showed those kuffars. I want to be just like you!”
*wipes spittle out of my eye*
This is what happens when you and your peer group are infatuated with an invisible dictator in the sky. Sheesh.
Hang on, I’ve had a change of heart due to the moving nasheed playing in the background. I’m off to the nearest mosque to take shahada so I can join this noble and repressed ummah in the fight against, against, well, against thoughtful people who say things I don’t like!
I was wondering what he was saying about Bill O’Reilly toward the end. His name came up several times in the last several sentences.
This excellent video commentary from Irshad Manji on the belgian rage boy incident deserves more exposure as part of this conversation:
Here is the Irshad Manji link I refered to above
Was just chatting to a Muslim woman I know who lives in Yemen, and she referred to Manji as a “munafiq”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munafiq
She probably calls Manji munafiq because she is gay.
Manji represents the evolution that Islam must complete before it can co-exist in a pluralistic tolerant modern democratic society. I think many but not all American Muslims have managed to integrate the Muslim idea that there is no compulsion in religion with the Western tradition of religious tolerance and religious freedom.
If the world’s Muslims cannot leave behind the warlike tribalism and the childish need for patriarchal control demonstrated by the uncivilized brutes in the video above, they will never be able to peacefully co-exist in Western society.
The “Munafiq” idea is interesting. Hypocrite; one thing on the outside and another inside; concealer, actor, trickster.
It’s cheater-detection, you see. The ability to cheat undetected is the big nightmare.
There are lots of Munafiq Muslims…because they can’t leave.
“Munafiq” should be pronounced “manifique”! It probably embodies the ludicrous idea that everybody is a Muslim, whether they know it or not. Hence the arrogant term of “revert” for a convert, the idea that all babies, whatever their parentage, are born Muslim and even that the mythical Abraham was a Muslim long before the religion was invented.
It is interesting that the wikipedia link has four criteria for being munafiq, and none of them mention fidelity to Islam per se. They are all about being trustworthy and cooperative.
I think the angry mob who interrupted the event qualify for the fourth hypocrisy.
Munfiq reminds me of the Republican concept of RINO. Interesting that Democrats don’t have such a “purity” test. This kind of adds credence to the idea that Republicanism is being converted into a form of religion by the religious right.
In American political jargon, munfiq might be translated as MINO. However, based on the four criteria listed above, this whole concept of being a fake muslim appears to be a perversion of the original intent.
Has any psychologist explored this phenomenon? Agitated young men, yelling and screaming about a woman having the temerity to disagree with them? & how it’s catered to by religion?
Surely someone has, right? There is so much of this nonsense running around. Islam is the worst offender, but it shows up elsewhere too, so it’s not just a unusual Middle Eastern cultural quirk like having issues with shellfish.
I did my own amateur psychoanalysis of Muslim males in a blog post. I see the treatment of women in Islam as a historically institutionalized form of male insecurity.
Here is an excerpt:
http://open.salon.com/blog/jeff_j/2012/01/22/is_wearing_the_hijab_courageous
Jeffrey G Johnson:
Thank you for posting thet video. It certainly made me aware of my prejudices against Muslims.
Irshad Manji is certainly a brave, bright and lovable person. I’d support her in any circumstance, even though I still think Allah is… well, you know, kind of quaint in his nonexistence.
piero,
Yes, I would love to see them all wake up from the religious dream.
But we atheists must stand up for religious freedom. Where would we be without religious freedom?
If anybody must believe and practice Islam, we should at least help encourage that element with both feet planted firmly in the 21st century, and who have the intelligence and insight to understand the value of a tolerant pluralistic society.
@ James #8 – agreed!
I am lost in admiration for the calm and quiet dignity displayed by these ladies and gentlemen when faced with a screaming mob of fascist thugs.
There is some mixed-up links on the main page, where this post is accompanied by video from Cranston School committee meeting.
According to a news release by the European Foundation for Democracy who were hosting that presentation “police arrested a number of the extremists”. I figure they should be expeditiously expelled or exiled as apparently happened, according to Ibn Warraq’s Why I Am Not a Muslim, to some mullah in France who said France’s laws did not apply to Muslims.
Enough is enough; time to read the Riot Act.