North America & Madrassahs -- Fifth Column

A Madrassah in Bridgeview, Illinois or here Daniel Pipes, FrontPageMagazine.com,June 20, 2005

Islamic schools. . . acting largely out of public view but with many signs suggesting their radicalization. [. . . . ]

Unfortunately, [Marguerite Michaels of Time Magazine] proved clueless about the real nature of the Universal School. She portrays it as a moderate institution, but the information she herself provides points to its being a school imparting an extreme version of Islam.

Several examples concern sexuality: [. . . . ]

Other attitudes concern the place of Muslims in the United States:

[. . . . ] This siege mentality furthers the Islamist agenda of grievance and demanding special privileges.

[. . . . ] Seeing Americans and Muslims, or more accurately, non-Muslims and Muslims, as separate populations is a key component of the Islamist project.

A preoccupation with foreign policy rounds out the picture:

"They are obsessed with foreign politics," says Steve Landek, the mayor of Bridgeview. "I come to talk to them about better sidewalks. They want to know how to run for Congress so they can change America's Israeli policy."

Assigned in English class to write about his American Dream, a 15-year-old wrote that the territories under Israeli control should be returned to the Palestinians and "the Jews should be left to suffer."

I finished Marguerite Michaels's article doubly dismayed. First, that a veteran Time journalist cannot see an American madrassah before her very eyes, replete with the alienation, resentment, supremacism, and isolation that feed the Islamist temperament. Secondly, that this "model school" quietly and openly churns out graduates hoping they will create an Islamic States of America.

I feel even more concerned about the Muslims' ability to bring an alien culture here and, because North Americans fear being termed racist or intolerant, Muslims are allowed to continue to perpetuate this perversion of male-female relationships, along with emphasizing hatred and killing. Our Judeo-Christian heritage has promoted reasoned discussion and allowed women to be free. It has encouraged women to grow through education, and men to respect them for it. Madrassahs are incompatible with freedom, as our culture has developed it. Muslims must adjust, not the rest of us.

As for the teenagers' concerns, all teenagers are curious about the changes in them growing up; thus they become obsessed by sexuality. Age and facing the cares of the world take care of it; adults should be mature enough to add some perspective, instead of fostering over-concern. However, the whole Islamic belief system promotes carrying this obsession into adulthood; it fosters the obsession with sex and with the idea that it is the women who are sinful, the temptresses of the innocent males. It sounds weak to me, as though these men were controlled by others; actually, they seem to be controlled by their own sexuality.

Frankly, we don't need this. Besides, one begins to question why the males, even adult males, are so obsessed with sex that, in the face of the more important concerns, the potential for freedom--even the freedom to choose to explore or not--fuss and fidget over whether a woman has her hair covered or speaks to a male, and whether she is causing the male to sin. They haven't learned to take responsibility themselves and seem to need women to blame. Muslims need to modernize and moderate Islam by ending all the talk of killing and jihad and, instead, promote the ability to question, to be tolerant and accepting of others, even of Muslims who choose to become free . . . or Muslims should get out. Yes, out!

As a woman, I don't want Islamic attitudes, particularly those toward women, here. I knew that the first day I saw a woman in a burqa. In fact, from what I can see and read, much of Islam is inimicable to a free society. How are the rest of us supposed to respect Islam if the major concern--at least the one which Muslims themselves keep talking about--is killing their enemies, particularly the Jews, which incidentally, often involves suicide bombing and the reward, a bunch of virgins? Grow up. Try talking to your enemies and to women instead of killing. That is why our society grew into one Muslims wanted to come to; we talked and reasoned out our differences or we agreed to disagree with, but not kill, those who had other beliefs.

This topic is important in Canada, given the Muslim schools and activism already here. I do not care whether I am considered racist for what I have said. Not controlled by a Muslim male--nor any other, for that matter--I am still free to speak out on what I see as utterly foolhardy . . . until our government decides to apply hate crime laws/regulations/whatever they're termed to people who still question their misguided multiculturalism and tolerance for what most of us find to be anathema. They will still have a hard time quieting those of us who are talking about what we see and hear. The more we get to know of the intolerance of some who have come to our shores, the less we want this, and the more we should speak out. Just try and stop us!

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