What Is "Islamophobia"?

Sam Harris | What Is "Islamophobia"?

What is Islamophobia? Someone once said on the Internet, it’s a word “invented by fascists and used by cowards to manipulate morons,” and that’s not far from the truth. There is no question that the term has been designed to confuse people. Its purpose is to conflate any criticism of Islam, which is a doctrine of religious beliefs, with bigotry against Muslims as people. In fact, it equates secularism itself—the commitment to keeping religion out of our laws and public policy—with hatred. The term is now being widely used in the mainstream media, and it is making it impossible to speak honestly about the consequences of dangerous ideas.

Let’s be clear about what is real here and what is fake: Racism is real. There are white supremacists in America, for instance. And, of course, these imbeciles can be counted upon to hate immigrants from Muslim-majority countries—Arabs, Pakistanis, Somalis, etc.—and to hate them for their superficial characteristics, like the color of their skin. This is detestable. But these people hate non-Muslim immigrants too—for instance, Hindus from India—and for the same reasons. We already have words like “racism” and “xenophobia” to cover this problem.  Inventing a new term like “Islamophobia” doesn’t give us license to say that there is a new form of hatred in the world. 

There is no race of Muslims. Islam is a system of ideas, subscribed to by people of every race and ethnicity. It’s just like Christianity in that regard. Christianity and Islam are both aggressively missionary faiths, and they win converts from everywhere. People criticize Christianity all the time and worry about its political and social influences—but no one confuses this for bigotry against Christians as people. There’s no such thing as “Christophobia.” If you criticize Christianity—and I’ve written an entire book excoriating Christianity—no one accuses you of being a racist against people from Brazil, or Mexico, or Ethiopia, or the Philippines. But even the New York Times will use the term “Islamophobia” as a synonym for racism against Arabs. This is pure delusion and propaganda. There are Christian Arabs. And I could become a Muslim in 5 minutes just by converting to the faith.

How does the term “antisemitism” differ as a concept? Well, we have a 2000-year-old tradition of religiously inspired hatred against Jews, courtesy of Christian theology. But for at least the last 150 years, or so, Jews have been thought of as a distinct race of people, both by those who hate them and, rather often, by Jews themselves. So antisemitism tends to be expressed as a specific form of racism. Antisemites are not focused on what Jews believe, or even on what they do on the basis of their beliefs. Modern antisemites, like Nazis, care about who your mother’s mother’s mother was. Just like racism, antisemitism has become a hatred of people, as people, not because of their beliefs or their behavior, but because of the mere circumstances of their birth.

Why is this different? Well, unlike a person’s race or skin color or country of origin, beliefs can be argued for, and criticized, and changed. And the truth is, we don’t respect people’s beliefs just because they hold them. Beliefs must earn respect. And there is a good reason for this: beliefs are claims about reality and about how human beings should live within it—so they necessarily lead to behaviors, and to values, and laws, and institutions that affect the lives of everyone, whether they share these beliefs or not. Beliefs end marriages and start wars.

Honestly criticizing the doctrine of Islam does not entail bigotry against Arabs or any other group of people. It is not an expression of hatred to notice that specific Islamic ideas—in particular, beliefs about martyrdom, and jihad, and blasphemy, and apostasy—inspire terrible acts of violence. And it’s not an expression of phobia—that is, irrational fear—to notice that violent religious fanatics don’t make good neighbors.

And while every religion has its fanatics, there is only one religion on Earth where even its mainstream members of the faith seek to impose their religious taboos on everyone else. There is only one religion that has made it unsafe for people to criticize it—or indeed, for its own members to leave it. Only Muslims routinely fear for their lives when they decide to leave their religion—and this is true, even in the West. If you doubt this, just read some books or listen to some podcasts by ex-Muslims.

Anyone who wants to draw a cartoon, or write a novel, or stage a play that makes fun of Mormonism is free to do that. In the United States, this freedom is nominally guaranteed by the First Amendment—but that is not, in fact, what guarantees it. The freedom to poke fun at Mormonism is guaranteed by the fact that Mormons don’t tend to murder their critics. They don’t start riots and burn embassies in response to satire.

When The Book of Mormon became the most celebrated musical in the United States, the LDS Church protested by placing ads for their faith in the program. That might have been a wasted effort: but it was also a charming sign of good humor. Yes, there are crazy and dangerous people in every faith—and I often hear from them. But what is true of Mormonism is true of every other religion, with a single exception. Can you imagine staging a similar play about Islam anywhere on Earth? No you cannot—unless you also imagine the creators of that play being hunted for the rest of their lives by religious maniacs. You also have to imagine Muslims by the hundreds of thousands, in dozens of countries, going absolutely berserk.

At this moment in history, there is only one religion that systematically stifles free expression with credible threats of violence. The truth is, we have already lost our First Amendment freedoms with respect to Islam. We lost them decades ago—and anyone who is tempted to cry “Islamophobia” at this point, shares the blame for this. This status quo is intolerable—and, most important, it should be intolerable to Muslims themselves. They should be mortified that their community is so uniquely combustible. So uniquely uncivil. So incapable of self-reflection and self-criticism. So dangerously childish. So desperate to make the whole world it's safe space.

Consider what is actually happening: Some percentage of the world’s Muslims—and it is not just extremists—are demanding that all non-Muslims conform to Islamic law. And while they might not immediately resort to violence in their protests, they threaten it. Carrying a sign through the streets of London that reads “Behead Those Who Insult the Prophet” might still count as an example of peaceful protest, but it is also an assurance that infidel blood would be shed if the thug holding the sign only had more power. Wherever Muslims do have real power, this grotesque promise is always fulfilled. To make a film, or stage a play, or write a novel critical of Islam in any Muslim-majority country, is as sure a method of suicide as the laws of physics allow. There is only one religion on Earth that has normalized this level of fanaticism. And it isn’t an expression of bigotry to notice that this is totally antithetical to everything that civilized people value in the 21st century.

The October 7th attacks in Israel changed the way many of us think about the vulnerability of open societies. They changed the way we think about immigration and failures of assimilation. And they revealed a level of moral confusion in our universities and other institutions that is as astonishing as it is masochistic. We have people who are ostensibly committed to women’s rights, and gay rights, and trans rights, mindlessly supporting people who would hurl them from rooftops or beat them to death with their own hands. It is not a sign of bigotry to notice this hypocrisy and moral confusion for what it is.

It really is possible to be critical of Israel, and to be committed to the political rights of the Palestinian people, without denying the reality of Islamic religious fanaticism—or the threat that it poses not just to Israel, but to open societies everywhere.

There have been nearly 50,000 acts of Islamic terrorism in the last 40 years—and the French group that maintains a database of these attacks considers that to be an undercount. Ninety percent of them have occurred in Muslim countries. Most have nothing to do with Israel or Jews. There have been 82 attacks in France and over 2000 in Pakistan during this period. Do you want France to be more like Pakistan? You just need more jihadists. You just need more people susceptible to becoming jihadists. You just need a wider Muslim community that won’t condemn jihadism, but pretends that the theology that inspires it will be true and perfect until the end of the world. You just need millions of people who will protest Israel for defending itself, or call for the deaths of cartoonists for depicting the prophet Muhammad, and yet not make a peep about the jihadist atrocities that occur daily, all over the world, in the name of their religion.

When hundreds of thousands of people show up in London to condemn Hamas, or the Islamic State, or any specific instance of jihadist savagery, without both-sides-ing anything, then we will know that something has changed. When Muslims by the millions pour into the streets in protest, not over cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, but over the murder of cartoonists by their own religious fanatics, we will know that we’ve made a modicum of progress.

The Muslim world needs to win a war of ideas with itself, and perhaps several civil wars. It has to de-radicalize itself. It has to transform the doctrine of jihad into something far more benign than it is, and it has to stop supporting its religious fanatics when they come into conflict with non-Muslims. This is what’s so toxic: Muslims supporting other Muslims no matter how sociopathic and insane their behavior.

If the Muslim community and the political Left can’t stand against jihadism, it is only a matter of time before their moral blindness leads to rightwing authoritarianism in the West. If secular liberals won’t create secure borders, fascists will. And that is a world that none of us should want to live in.

 

 

 

 

 

The Myth of Islamophobia

The Myth of Islamophobia
The idea that Muslim communities are systemically discriminated against throughout Western Europe is pure fantasy.

Listening to many Muslim activists and leaders, you would think that Western Europe is a hotbed of anti-Muslim hatred. That Muslims cannot leave their homes without fearing for their safety. Or could not participate in mainstream society without facing debilitating prejudice. 

Scottish former First Minister Humza Yousaf complained earlier this year that the current political climate “certainly makes me feel unsafe, and I suspect makes most Muslims question whether their future could possibly be in this country.” In the same vein, the UK Labour government is toying with the idea of adopting a more expansive definition of Islamophobia that would bend any criticism of Islam or Muslims as hate speech. According to the French Council of the Muslim Faith, French Muslims feel they are “no longer safe from constant suspicion.” One survey in the Netherlands earlier this year apparently found that anti-Muslim “discrimination is structural, widespread, and normalised.” The Islamic Commission of Spain similarly warned against the “widespread spread of hate speech against Islam, Muslims, mosques.” 

Reality tells a different story, however. In fact, many Western European societies expend vast amounts of time, money, and energy in accommodating Muslim communities—even to the detriment of the native population. A cursory glance at the news recently will tell you all you need to know. In Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta this week, the government has banned the serving of pork in public schools and mandated halal meals. This means that any meat offered in school cafeterias must be slaughtered according to Muslim religious practices—the animal is killed by a Muslim, in the name of Allah, by slitting its throat and draining its blood, without first being stunned. 

Something similar is happening in schools in Barcelona. Not because of government mandates, but because of rapid demographic change. In one district, Sant Martí, 80% of public schools serve halal meals to pupils. None of these schools, however, offer a special menu for Lent, the time of year when Christians traditionally fast or remove certain food groups from their diets. 

Pork is vanishing from school cafeterias in Vienna, Austria, too. It was reported earlier this week that traditional dishes like schnitzel and roast pork are less and less being given to pupils at lunchtimes, and many schools have stopped offering meals containing pork altogether. This is hardly a surprising development, given that 41% of all Viennese schoolchildren are Muslim, as of this year. That makes Islam the dominant religion in Vienna’s schools. 

Across the border in Germany, even more sweeping accommodations are being made for the growing Muslim population. In the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, the local government decided last month to introduce Islamic Studies as a new subject in schools, subject to student numbers and teacher qualifications. It also plans to give Muslims in the state two new public holidays, allowing civil servants, students, and employees to take days off for Ramadan and Eid al-Adha. Naturally, non-Muslims won’t be able to take advantage of these two new holidays, and Muslims in Germany will still be given time off for Christmas and Easter. This is also a somewhat odd decision, given that Muslims currently account for less than 5% of Schleswig-Holstein’s population. In fact, there are currently more Catholics than Muslims in Schleswig-Holstein, and yet Catholic festivals like Corpus Christi curiously don’t receive the same special treatment. 

In many cases, though, these accommodations aren’t enough. There have been episodes in which the Muslim minority resorts to intimidation to get special privileges for its community, forcing the native majority population to bend to its will. This August in a Paris suburb, a gang of Muslim youths managed to force the local authorities to cancel a planned screening of the Barbie movie, because it apparently “promoted homosexuality and insulted the image of women.” In immigrant-heavy Noisy-le-Sec, radical teens threatened council workers and tried to smash up equipment, stopping the film from being shown as part of a free outdoor cinema programme for deprived locals. France, which has the largest Muslim population of any country in Europe, is often held hostage by Islamists who demand that society revolve around them. 

So too is the UK. Back in 2023, four pupils at a secondary school in West Yorkshire were suspended for supposedly “desecrating” a Quran. One of the boys had taken it to school after losing a dare with his friends, and, at some point, the book was dropped to the floor and scuffed. For this, the headteacher, a local imam (who was also a councillor), and even a policeman got involved. The boy’s mother—made to cover her hair—was hauled in front of a meeting at a mosque, where she was made to apologise for her son’s apparent blasphemy. She explained that her son was terrified and that he had received death threats. Nonetheless, the police logged the Quran scuffing as a “hate incident.” Mercifully, none of the children involved were actually prosecuted. 

Even worse was what happened to one anonymous teacher at the Batley Grammar School, also in West Yorkshire. In 2021, the religious studies teacher was forced to go into hiding after he showed images of the Prophet Muhammed to his class, something forbidden by Islam. In response, large protests amassed outside the school, calling for the teacher’s sacking at the minimum. Bizarrely, instead of standing behind its member of staff for giving a completely normal lesson about freedom of speech and religion, the school immediately caved. It branded the class as having been “completely inappropriate,” as it “had the capacity to cause great offence to members of our school community.” The teacher in question was suspended and, ultimately, cleared to return to work. But how could he? He had received death threats and feared for his life. He and his family were eventually forced to move house and go into hiding. 

Few hatreds are seen as more sacred than Islamophobia. The regular, widespread arson attacks against churches in France, for example, are seldom commented on outside the right-wing and Christian media. And nowhere is this favouritism clearer than when it comes to antisemitism. Since the start of Israel’s war against Hamas, antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed in practically every Western European country. As of this week, Jews suffered the highest rate of hate crimes in England and Wales this year. The statistics equate to 106 crimes per 10,000 Jews, versus 12 crimes per 10,000 Muslims. And yet Islamophobia is almost always the chief concern of politicians and the pundit class. Even when antisemitism does get a mention, it is usually in the same breath as Islamophobia. 

None of this is to say that individual Muslims can never experience discrimination at the hands of other individuals. But to suggest that there is some kind of systemic Islamophobia in the West is pure fantasy. Muslim communities almost uniformly receive preferential treatment and protection by national and local authorities. From arresting people who burn Qurans to allowing critics of Islam to be hounded out of society, Western Europe is well and truly devoted to appeasing Muslims—even to the detriment of the native Christian populations. So long as the loudest Islamist voices are happy, the rights of everyone else are irrelevant. 

The West is in thrall to a radical, often violent, minority. We cannot keep rewarding this intimidation. If we continue bargaining away our rights, there will soon be nothing left. 

 

The Passion of the Talarico

The Passion of the Talarico
When scripture becomes a tool for advancing contemporary progressive politics, Christianity begins to resemble secular humanism dressed up in religious language.

I’ve called Texas Democrat James Talarico “Pastor Pornhub” because if I could create the living embodiment of Satan on earth, he would look just like Talarico, a leftist caricature of a Christian, smug, self-righteous and generously quoting Bible verses to justify his political positions.

The problem is not so much quoting of the Bible, but the heretical interpretations of those verses because Pastor Pornhub is a “progressive” Christian, which is to say he is not a Christian at all.

In recent years, the rise of what is called “progressive Christianity” has been celebrated by its advocates as a natural evolution of the Christian faith. According to this view, the church is simply adapting to new moral insights and social realities, much as it has done throughout history, but that description strikes me as deeply misleading. What is happening is not evolution, it is divergence.

For nearly two thousand years, Christianity has rested on a recognizable set of core beliefs. Christians across centuries, continents, and cultures have disagreed on many secondary questions—church governance, liturgy, the finer points of theology—but they have largely shared a common foundation. That foundation includes belief in the divinity of Christ, the authority of scripture, the reality of sin, the need for redemption, and the resurrection. These were not invented by modern evangelicals or any particular denomination, they were articulated early in the church’s history and affirmed in statements such as the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed.

Those beliefs formed the boundary lines of what Christianity was understood to be.

Progressive Christianity, however, increasingly treats those doctrines not as defining truths but as optional metaphors. The resurrection becomes a “symbol of hope.” The divinity of Christ becomes an “inspirational idea.” Sin becomes a social construct rather than a condition of the human heart. Salvation becomes collective political improvement rather than reconciliation with God.

At that point one has to ask an obvious question: if those beliefs are no longer essential, what exactly remains that makes the system Christian?

Advocates often insist that Christianity has always evolved, pointing to past moral developments such as the abolition of slavery or the expansion of civil rights, but those examples do not demonstrate doctrinal abandonment; they demonstrate moral application. Christians argued against slavery because they believed human beings were created in the image of God. They fought for civil rights because they believed in the equal dignity of souls before God. The underlying theology remained intact.

What we are seeing today is something quite different. The underlying theology is being reinterpreted—or more accurately, rewritten—to conform to modern secular assumptions and that distinction matters. Where interpretation attempts to understand a text within its original framework, rewriting changes the framework itself.

If this sounds like the deconstructionism of Jacques Derrida, it should because it is a close cousin of the tactic of stripping all meaning from a thing and reassigning a meaning that better supports a preconceived agenda.

Progressive Christians often claim they are simply reading scripture through the lens of compassion and justice. Yet compassion and justice were hardly invented in the 21st century. The problem is not that progressive Christians emphasize moral concern for the poor or marginalized - Christianity has always done that - the problem is that modern political ideology increasingly determines which parts of scripture are emphasized, which are ignored, and which are redefined beyond recognition. When that happens, scripture ceases to function as an authority. It becomes a symbolic resource that can be reshaped to match whatever the current cultural consensus happens to be.

In that sense, progressive Christianity begins to resemble secular humanism more than traditional Christianity. The moral framework is no longer grounded in divine revelation but in contemporary (and malleable) social values. Ethical goals like equity, inclusion, and social justice are defined primarily by modern political discourse. Government policy becomes the primary instrument for achieving those goals. The language may remain Christian, but the underlying worldview is largely secular and politicized.

This is why I am not alone in arguing that progressive Christianity is not a development of Christianity so much as a religiously flavored version of modern progressivism.

Many people sincerely believe that moral truth is best derived from human reasoning and evolving social consensus, but that approach is fundamentally different from the historic Christian claim that moral truth is revealed through God and preserved in scripture.

Blending the two systems inevitably changes both.

Once doctrine becomes infinitely flexible—once miracles become metaphors, sin becomes sociology, and salvation becomes public policy—Christianity loses the very elements that once distinguished it from other moral philosophies, and the faith becomes less a religion grounded in divine action and more a spiritual vocabulary for contemporary political goals.

Some may welcome that transformation, but it should at least be described honestly. We seem to be condemned to replaying the French Revolution over and over.

In my honest opinion, what is happening is not the organic evolution of Christianity. Evolution implies continuity with the past. What we are seeing instead is a gradual departure from the beliefs that defined Christianity for centuries and the replacement of those beliefs with politically useful narratives.

A faith that systematically replaces its historic doctrines with modern secular assumptions may still call itself Christianity but whether it remains Christianity in any meaningful sense is not a hard question to answer.

Talarico is an example of evil personified, and one must really consider what that means since the entire Democrat establishment is behind him in his run for the US Senate.

 

Fatalism, Islam, Innovation and Modernity

This also ties into the myth of the Islamic Golden Age:

"The Islamic view of the relative insignificance of everything we see with our own eyes is that this world is merely a way station. While martyrdom is the extreme reaction, it is not the only reaction to this view of the world. The question arises: Why bother, if our sights are trained not on this life but on the afterlife? I believe that Islam’s afterlife fixation tends to erode the intellectual and moral incentives that are essential for “making it” in the modern world.

As a translator for other Somalis who had arrived in Holland, I saw this phenomenon in various forms. One was simply the clash of cultures when immigrant Muslims and native-born Dutch lived in close proximity to one another. In apartment complexes, the Dutch were generally meticulous about keeping common spaces free of any litter. The immigrants, however, would throw down wrappers, empty Coca-Cola cans, and cigarette butts, or spit out the remnants of their chewed qat. The Dutch residents would grow incensed at this, just as they would grow incensed by the groups of children who would run about, wild and unsupervised, at all hours. It was easy for one family to have many children. (If a man can marry up to four wives and have multiple children with each of them, the numbers grow quickly.) The Dutch would shake their heads, and in reply the veiled mothers would simply shrug their shoulders and say that it was “God’s will.” Trash on the ground became “God’s will,” children racing around in the dark became “God’s will.” Allah has willed it to be this way; it is there because Allah has willed it. And if Allah has willed it, Allah will provide. It is an unbreakable ring of circular logic.

There is a fatalism that creeps into one’s worldview when this life is seen as transitory and the next is the only one that matters. Why pick up trash, why discipline your children, when none of those acts is stored up for any type of reward? Those are not the behaviors that mark good Muslims; they have nothing to do with praying or proselytizing.

This, too, helps explain the notorious underrepresentation of Muslims as scientific and technological innovators. To be sure, the medieval Arabic world gave us its numerals and preserved classical knowledge that might otherwise have been lost when Rome was overrun by the barbarian tribes. In the ninth century, the Muslim rulers of Córdoba in Spain built a library large enough to house 600,000 books. Córdoba then had paved streets, streetlamps, and some three hundred public baths, at a time when London was little more than a collection of mud huts, lined with straw, where all manner of waste was thrown into the street and there was not a single light on the public thoroughfares. Yet, as Albert Hourani points out, Western scientific discoveries from the Renaissance on produced “no echo” in the Islamic world. Copernicus, who in the early 1500s determined that the earth was not the center of the universe but rather revolved around the sun, did not appear in Ottoman writings until the late 1600s, and then only briefly. There was no Muslim Industrial Revolution. Today, there is no Islamic equivalent of Silicon Valley. It simply is not convincing to blame this stagnation on Western imperialism; after all, the Islamic world had empires of its own, the Mughal as well as the Ottoman and Safavid. Though it is unfashionable to say so, Islam’s fatalism is a more plausible explanation for the Muslim world’s failure to innovate.

Significantly, the very word for innovation in Islamic texts, bid’a, refers to practices that are not mentioned in the Qur’an or the sunnah. One hadith translated into English declares that every novelty is an innovation, and every innovation takes one down a misguided path toward hell. Others warn against general innovations as things spread by Jewish and Christian influences and by all those who are ruled by misguided and dangerous passions. Those who innovate should be isolated and physically punished and their ideas should be condemned by the ulema. It was precisely this mentality that killed off astronomical research in sixteenth-century Istanbul and ensured that the printing press did not reach the Ottoman Empire until more than two centuries after its spread throughout Europe.

Zakir Naik, an Indian-born and -trained doctor who has become a very popular imam, has argued that, while Muslim nations can welcome experts from the West to teach science and technology, when it comes to religion, it is Muslims who are “the experts.” Hence, no other religions can or should be preached in Muslim nations, because those religions are false. But look more closely at his point: Naik is implicitly acknowledging the success of the West in this world. All Muslim nations have to offer, he concedes, is a near-total expertise on the subject of the next world."

--- Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now / Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Electoral Islamism in France

Translated by Google:

Islamism in France Is Becoming an Electoral Issue - La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana (L'Islamismo in Francia sta diventando un problema elettorale) 
A lengthy report from the Élysée reconstructs Islam's political strategies in France and the role played by institutional figures. And as the local elections approach, there are fears that the community vote will be exploited to turn the Muslim vote into an electoral lever.  

Khaled Meshaal, the head of Hamas, speaks from afar, but with the air of someone observing a map slowly taking shape. In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera in early December, the leader of the Palestinian terrorist organization indulged in a boast that sounded less like a provocation and more like a diagnosis: "The Palestinian cause," he said, "has entered the minds of young Europeans and Americans," becoming a " new division of the resistance " that fights not in tunnels or along borders, but "in the streets, among young people, on university campuses, in political parties; there, the Palestinian cause has achieved great results." These words find unexpected support in the work of the French Parliament, which has just published its  report  on Islamism in the Republic . 

For over a decade, Paris has been under constant pressure from a relentless Islamic terrorism and an Islamism that dictates the law in various contexts. This scenario is further corroborated by the publication of two investigative books—   Omar Youssef Souleimane's "Accomplices of Evil" and Nora Bussigny's "The New Anti-Semites: An Investigation by an Infiltrator into the Ranks of the Far Left"  —which have shed light on Islamist entryism into the French political class and have contributed to making an institutional response unavoidable. The Elysée Palace has decided to take a formal step: convening a parliamentary commission of inquiry to determine the existence and nature of the links between political Islamism and left-wing parties. 

Six months of work under pressure , punctuated by closed hearings, personal threats, and a climate of constant tension, have led the French parliamentary commission to an unambiguous conclusion: the terrorist threat has not receded, and political Islamism continues to expand along less visible but highly dangerous lines. Thirty witnesses, including three researchers and two journalists, requested a closed-door hearing, fearing for their safety. La France Insoumise and Les Écologistes (The Greens) are the only two parties cited, and their connections, ambiguities, and similarities raise disturbing questions. 

The  650-page report reconstructs in great detail the political strategies of Islam in France and the role played by institutional figures. "Political Islam is not a fantasy, it is not an abstraction, but a real, documented, and visible threat," declared the investigation's rapporteur,  Matthieu Bloch . "It has a legalistic face and a violent one." And with the municipal elections approaching, the report warns of the potential exploitation of the community vote. "These consultations," it states, "could offer Islamists the opportunity to turn the Muslim vote into an electoral lever." 

On the political level, the report goes beyond diagnosis : it records facts. Several radical imams have openly called for voting for La France Insoumise (Insubordinate France ). This signal reinforces the idea of ​​an electoral unity that is now explicit, at least in some areas. The testimonies of the prefects of the major metropolitan areas, electoral strongholds of LFI, are among the most revealing. From the Rhône comes a clear statement: two party members are using an  anti-colonial discourse  aimed at portraying Islam and Muslim communities as systemic victims, exploiting these issues for political purposes. This stance, the report warns, makes LFI a linchpin of Islamist infiltration.

The cities of Valenciennes, Douchy-les-Mines, and Colombes are cited as case studies of a similar dynamic: the progressive infiltration of Islamist networks into the local political fabric, through formally legal but politically destabilizing mechanisms. According to the commission, three main trends can be observed in these cities. The first concerns the proven presence of militants or sympathizers of political Islamism within electoral lists and municipal consultative bodies, capable of influencing votes, resolutions, and administrative priorities.

The second concerns a targeted mobilization of the community vote , especially in neighborhoods with a high Muslim population, where identity claims—from places of worship to "cultural" associations, even symbolic concessions—are used as a lever for political exchange to transform a religious constituency into a disciplined electorate. The third direction is represented by a network of formally civic associations that act as a link between religious activism and local politics: it is in this gray area, the commission emphasizes, that Islamism takes on its "legalistic" form, exploiting the rules of the state to consolidate influence and legitimacy.

The systematic courting of Islamic associations, the defense of the headscarf in schools as a symbol of identity, the inflated use of the accusation of  Islamophobia  against those who criticize fundamentalism, the sacralization of immigration as a political dogma: everything has become a bargaining chip for a handful of votes.

These elements overlap with what Céline Berthon , head of the General Directorate for Internal Security, highlighted: "Not only the 2025 attacks and the five foiled plots, but also evidence of a strong presence of Islamism in other forms that undermine national cohesion: separatism and one of its manifestations, infiltration." This alarm was confirmed by Bertrand Chamoulaud, director of territorial intelligence , who requested a closed-door hearing, but who had previously stated that "several separatist ecosystems" operate in France, at least  fourteen , structured around mosques or associations of Salafist inspiration or linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. On the ground, the numbers speak for themselves. Alexandre Brugère, prefect of the Hauts-de-Seine, indicated seventy structures under surveillance in his department alone.

Hence the policy line outlined by the Ministry of the Interior : broaden the criteria for dissolving organizations to include threats to social cohesion; strengthen European cooperation to prevent dissolved associations from re-establishing themselves abroad; freeze assets in the event of dissolution; intensify controls on Koranic schools and association financial flows; and give prefects the power to oppose the construction of places of worship if there are signs of separatism or infiltration.

Hence the 32 recommendations with which the commission seeks to translate the alarm into action: stricter controls on subsidies to associations, better information for parliamentarians, operational support for local elected officials through training, intelligence sharing, and structured dialogue with prefects. Particular attention is paid to the most exposed sectors—schools, associations, sports, social networks—where political Islamism finds fertile ground to take root.

The testimony of a former LFI leader in the North , Cédric Brun, further cements the picture. His accusation is the most brutal and the reason he left the party: "It's not a matter of infiltration, but of a deliberate political strategy aimed at welcoming these profiles to gain the missing votes in the second round of the presidential election. It's a cynical choice. The rapprochement between La France Insoumise and these individuals, close to Iran or other countries, and recipients of foreign funding, constitutes a threat to our democracy."

 

Mistaking Leviathan for God (Politics as Religion)

Mistaking Leviathan for God

"We are told from many quarters that something called “our democracy” is in mortal danger. The feeling of dread is pervasive: Google “our democracy in danger” and you get 70 million hits. The headlines have been frightening. Here’s the New York Times: “Will 2024 be the year democracy dies?” NBC: “Election officials say democracy is still at risk in 2024.” The Financial Times: “Can democracy survive 2024?” The putative cause of death is usually Donald Trump—but it also could be the Deep State, social media or Vladimir Putin. One way or another, our beloved democracy seems to be on the verge of annihilation...

What we are experiencing isn’t the death of democracy but a crisis of representation. According to Pew Research Center, only 22% of Americans trust the federal government. Trust has virtually vanished among Republicans (11%); more startling, to me, is the collapse of trust in government among Democrats (35%). Trust in Congress has dipped into the same territory: 24% in Ballotpedia’s rolling average. Three out of four Americans feel unrepresented by their elected representatives.

To some extent, the cause of the crisis is thunderingly obvious. Representative government requires a strong bond of identity between the public and the political class. That bond has shattered like a mirror under the blows of the digital age. Elected officials are clueless about, and terrified by, the public. More importantly, the lives of politicians have become incomprehensible to ordinary people. Elizabeth Warren had trouble holding a beer bottle. Trump is forever riding that golden escalator into and out of his very own tower. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, once a bartender, now resembles a movie star treading the red carpet. Like a certain type of little dog, these hyperambitious organisms seem overbred to some singular purpose.

And here I have to deliver the bad news. The malady runs much deeper than this. At the heart of the crisis of representation we will discover an impossible longing for meaning and transcendence.

Mediated government is procedural business: As liberalism in action, it explicitly rejects any claims to cosmic significance. Officially, there can be no long march to utopia, no leader-worship, no regimented, “Triumph of the Will”-like torchlight parades. The system wraps the problem of meaning around its novel approach to the problem of freedom. Both are privatized. The citizen is liberated from the burdens of government service and granted a protected sphere of unimpeded activity. That is the realm where the big questions reside. We are free to pine after God—to attend church, synagogue, mosque or Masonic temple—so long as we keep it legal, and, as with all prurient affairs, comport ourselves with the proper discretion.

The arrangement made for an occasional collision and explosion worked surprisingly well for over a century. Catholics put up with Protestants, Christians with atheists, farmers with factory hands, hippies with suits, in that dynamic cluster of American aspiration we call the pursuit of happiness. Religion was only part of it. (I knew a taxi driver who derived his sense of worth from performing as a clown with the Shriners.) In this huge and restless country, the point was to belong somewhere, to be someone, to attain a web of human relations that nourished the spirit and helped make sense of the world.

Then came the fall. For reasons too complex to delve into here, the sources of meaning and spirituality began to wither and die. Attendance at religious services, for example, has tumbled precipitously. So has membership in Masonic organizations and participation in sports leagues for both children and adults. Connection to neighborhood and community has largely disappeared—the loss of trust in government in part reflects our lack of trust in one another. Families are broken or nonexistent. A nation of joiners and volunteers first dissolved into a passive TV audience—and finally blew apart, with a rude noise, among the volatile conflicts of the web.

Human nature hasn’t changed, however. We still crave justification. The loss of shared meaning condemns the individual to a terrible solitude at the edge of the abyss—and we shouldn’t be surprised by the pathological nature of the responses. In “The Anxious Generation,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt speaks of a “surge of suffering,” particularly among the young. Americans are afflicted with increased anxiety, depression, drug addiction and “deaths of despair,” to match a corresponding decline in marriage, childbearing, even sexual activity. The private sphere, formerly the realm of meaning, is now a wasteland haunted by accusing phantoms. The pursuit of happiness has come to feel like a panicked flight to nowhere.

The pathology has spilled over into politics. Hungry for a loftier state of being, many somehow imagine they have found it in bashing the dull machinery of representational government. These seekers have mistaken Leviathan for God, the will to power for the state of grace—and, by exalting political action almost literally to heaven, they have succumbed to what might be called the transcendental temptation. Only politics, they believe, can save the earth. Only politics can establish social justice. Only politics can preserve the “normies” from the pedophiles who run the country.

As it happens, they are demanding personal validation from an institution explicitly designed not to provide it.

Let me suggest a medical name for this cognitive disorder: “Greta Thunberg Syndrome.” Young Thunberg was one of Haidt’s sufferers, healed by the miracle of environmental activism.

“Before I started school striking I had no energy, no friends and I didn’t speak to anyone. I just sat at home, with an eating disorder,” she tweeted. “All that is gone now, since I have found a meaning, in a world that sometimes seems shallow and meaningless to so many people.”

Thunberg is a fairly typical specimen of those who confuse politics with redemption. With an almost gnostic fervor, she hates the society in which she lives quite comfortably, and keeps breathlessly anticipating its doom. She’s wholly focused on personal theater—not surprisingly, her father is an actor, her mother an opera singer—with few, if any, perceptible consequences. She’s sustained by the absolute certainty that she embodies Truth in the eternal war against Falsehood. Above all, she needs the fuel of rage to lift her spirit above this meaningless world—the angrier she gets, the happier she is...

As Thunberg admits, the temple of activism is often erected on a foundation of psychopathology. There appears to be more than a hint of self-loathing, even self-destructiveness, among those who vandalize ancient works of art or prevent commuters from reaching their jobs, so they can earn their brief instant in front of the cameras. These are not sturdy yeomen. If industrial society were to vanish in a flash, the activist class would go extinct soon after. The self-nullifying contradictions bubble up so close to the surface that one wonders how the people involved can remain unaware of them. The rank and file of Queers for Palestine, for instance, would be exterminated if transported to Gaza.

William James once wrote of the “divided self,” a personality prone to sudden shifts and conversions. Ours are fractured times. The religious impulse in politics should be understood as a fevered grab at wholeness—that is, at purity, simplicity, honesty, everything an evil age has denied the parched hearts of the rebels. The spirit of inquisition is strong. The enemy must be identified and silenced. Because the stakes are apocalyptic, villains can’t be allowed to shelter behind empty proceduralism. According to one poll, a majority of Americans believes the First Amendment, which protects free speech, goes “too far.” A similar majority favors government control of “false information.” Lies have no place in a purified celestial order. False opinion endures, not by right, but on sufferance.

“Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists,” stated a leader in the anti-Israel student protests at Columbia University. This was personal theater with genocidal intent.

Curiously, the progressive political class, long isolated and afraid, has found in this desperate hunger a link back to the public. It has no clue about meaning—but it has a talent for faking it. It’s able to strike heroic and uncompromising poses. For so small a price, progressive politicians have gained a potent weapon of control.

I find it very easy to imagine a government dominated by true believers in perpetual protest mode, mediated by more disciplined nongovernmental zealots, and administered, in the usual bungling manner, by the ruling elites. The media and academia will applaud, movies will be full of righteous vehemence, corporations will make commercials advertising their virtuous support. Representation, in that case, will be a transparent fiction, and Madison’s mechanisms against tyranny will fall into serious disrepair.

Where do we go from here? To begin with, we must think clearly about the crisis of representation. Part of it is structural. Mediation is intentional and no doubt necessary, but bloated paralysis was never the desired endpoint. Too many layers of mediation have accumulated between the ordinary citizen and elected officials. This not only alienates the citizen, who feels shunted to a vast antechamber crowded with frustrated petitioners—it also promotes the kind of hidden incompetence and lack of accountability we recently witnessed in the Secret Service...

Part of the crisis is social, and that’s a tough one to fix. Good people are rightly repelled by the idea of running for office. It’s like jumping into a meat-grinder—not much of the original person emerges on the other side. As a result, we are stuck with animatronic zombies like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris or loudmouth mutants like Trump...

But what are we to do with the fanatics who wish to turn government into a church and the private sphere into a puritanical zone of control? That, I think, is much more straightforward. We should recall that the activists are our fellow citizens, not Nazi stormtroopers or aliens from space. They are responding to an ancient existential need. As human beings, they should be treated with compassion. As political actors, however, they must be confronted and defeated. There’s no middle ground: Either we are equal and equally free or we’re nothing. The cosmic can have no truck with the transactional. As a cursory glance at 20th-century history should teach us, the transcendental temptation is indistinguishable from the totalitarian one."  

 

 

 

Christianity and European Advancement

Sanity First @GNQ_: "Good Afternoon"
*Chart showing scientific advancement with time, with a dropoff during the Christian Dark Ages, and extrapolation claiming that without "the hole left by the Christian Dark Ages", scientific advancement in 1000 AD would be the same as in 2000 AD*

Possum Reviews @ReviewsPoss ...: "Please explain why the non-Christian world didn't advance a thousand years ahead of the Christian world during that time."

Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) on X

"*sigh* it did.

This was “The Islamic Golden Age” in the Middle East and “The Golden Age of the Song Dynasty” in China.

The Islamic Golden Age started in 662 with major caliphates like the Abbasid Caliphate. These caliphates eventually to led to the Sultanate of Rum which then conquered much of the Christian Byzantine Empire territories, eventually becoming part of the Ottoman Empire.

It was the Islamic golden age that gave us modern algebra, analytic geometry, the law of sines, the scientific method, major advances in medicine - especially the understanding of the vascular system, and some of the first modern surgeries including the first mastectomy treatment of breast cancer. All things that Christian Europe lagged behind on for hundreds of more years.

In China, the Song Dynasty from 960-1279 saw its own boom.

They created banknotes, the first standing navy, the first gun powder weapons, the true north compass, astronomical clocks, and its GDP was 3x larger than that of all of Europe combined.

The practiced the first modern autopsies, created some of the first joint-stock companies, created a mechanical odometer, the differential gear, and the first movable type print system.

Once again all of which took Christian Europe many hundred years to catch up on.

So “why didn’t the non-Christian world advance a thousand years ahead during that time?”

It literally did, and you just need to read a fucking book.

The Christian Dark Ages are called the dark ages because they literally massively set us back a thousand years in science, medicine, and every other field, due to horrible over reach of Christian policy over the state.

That’s why we named it that way.

There is no problem being of faith, but don’t try and white wash your faiths history through a xenophobic lens that assumes the failings of the Christian Dark Ages applied to the rest of the world."

Alexander Augustine on X

"Absolutely retarded view of history clung to by atheists who hate their parents. It's so fucking embarassing anyone over 14 years old believes this shit. China had so many "Golden Ages" and technological advancements that when the UK sent 25 steamboats to the other side of the planet to sail up their rivers, they completely dismantled the Chinese empire and issued in the "Century of Humiliation."

Looks like their 1,000-year head start didn't work out too well for them.

In the first Crusade, Muslims weren't trouncing the Christians because we were 500 years behind them technologically and they had spent 400 years in an Abbasid golden age with the expelled Jews learning math. The Abbasids had actually just been conquered by a bunch of horse lords from the steppe who couldn't do any math at all. The Muslims who came to fight the Crusaders were shocked by the Frankish Heavy Cavalry, which was so advanced and professional that the Crusaders defeated every army sent after them, even when starving to death and massively outnumbered in every battle.

That doesn't look like the difference in 1,000 years of technology, because obviously that wasn't the case.

We know what the difference of 1,000 years of advancement looks like, it looks like White people taking over the world from 1500 to the current year.

People just say this shit because they don't care about history they want to shit on Christianity and White people, they don't actually understand development and since its clear white people ended up winning civilization they need a cope to say they were winning for a little bit."

Raver on X

"Uhm you need to read a book...

It was not Christian over reach. The Western Roman Empire fell to invasion and plague and society collapsed. The Church stepped in because no one else could or would safe guard anything but their own power.

Western Europe lost much but still made some advances. Medieval agriculture was more advanced than Roman. Architecture advanced and over time the spread of Christianity brought about a wide and generally accepted social consensus that while imperfect laid the foundation stones for the renascence and modern era of nation states.

In Eastern Europe there was no fall. Much of the "Islamic Golden Age" was predicated on the Arabs translating from the Greek.

Oh just to point out that though it happened at different times, the Western Romans, Eastern Romans, Arabs and Chinese all had their "golden ages" ended by the arrival of steppe horsemen. Felt caps and recurve bows ended more golden ages before gun powder than any other force."

Aidan Mattis on X

"“The Christian Dark Ages are called the dark ages because they literally massively set us back a thousand years in science, medicine, and every other field, due to horrible over reach of Christian policy over the state.”

Every single part of this is untrue, down to the fact that you’re still calling it the “Dark Ages” when historians stopped using that term a long time ago. The idea that Christianity set Europe back is completely ahistorical nonsense that isn’t supported by any of the evidence."

Monarchists of America on X

"The Christian dark ages are called the dark ages because the lack of sources compared to antiquity. So we are "in the dark" about the period. It wasn't less advanced."

Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) on X

"Yeah Sandy it’s almost as if then those other regions went through their own issues due the the Golden Horde destroying 12% of the global population and salting the earth, while we benefited from their inventions after our own renaissance.

It’s almost as if every culture contributed to global progress and that you’d be fucking stupid to think one race or religion is somehow superior."

The Return of the Ping on X

"If they were a thousand years ahead of everyone else, why didn't they simply invent laser guns to kill the Mongols instead of being conquered by a bunch of guys with horses and arrows?

To that point, why were the backwater Europeans who were 2000 years behind them able to hold off the Mongols while they were conquered by them?"

Naturally, Adam Cochran blocked Alexander Augustine after he tweeted his reply (after quoting his response to attempt to dismiss it with weak hand-waving about the Mongols (when they invaded the Middle East 1.5 centuries after the First Crusade), so the latter wouldn't be able to easily reply again, and hiding someone else who pointed out he was talking nonsense about Muslim contributions), then doubled down on attacking Christians with his historical ignorance again. Not to mention the historians who point out the Romans had plateaued with technology and that the Dark Ages had technological advancements.

Whenever left wingers tell others to "read a book", they're invariably the ignorant ones who need to read books. Left wing projection strikes again.

Harming the Image of Islam in 1595 / Gay Muslims in Heaven

"The picture below is found in the Serbian Museum showing Ottoman Khilafah soldiers in 1595 skinning dead Orthodox priest Hieromartyr Teodor for rebelling against the invaders.
I did not realize CIA and Western intelligence had started paying people to harm the image of Islam so early!"

"Gay Muslims in heaven *sad man with 2 girls kissing him*"

Mistaking Leviathan for God

On politics being the new religion (mostly for Progressive Democrats / secular left wingers):

Mistaking Leviathan for God
Politics, unlike religion, can never be a source of meaning or spirituality

"We are told from many quarters that something called “our democracy” is in mortal danger. The feeling of dread is pervasive: Google “our democracy in danger” and you get 70 million hits. The headlines have been frightening. Here’s the New York Times: “Will 2024 be the year democracy dies?” NBC: “Election officials say democracy is still at risk in 2024.” The Financial Times: “Can democracy survive 2024?” The putative cause of death is usually Donald Trump—but it also could be the Deep State, social media or Vladimir Putin. One way or another, our beloved democracy seems to be on the verge of annihilation...

What we are experiencing isn’t the death of democracy but a crisis of representation. According to Pew Research Center, only 22% of Americans trust the federal government. Trust has virtually vanished among Republicans (11%); more startling, to me, is the collapse of trust in government among Democrats (35%). Trust in Congress has dipped into the same territory: 24% in Ballotpedia’s rolling average. Three out of four Americans feel unrepresented by their elected representatives.

To some extent, the cause of the crisis is thunderingly obvious. Representative government requires a strong bond of identity between the public and the political class. That bond has shattered like a mirror under the blows of the digital age. Elected officials are clueless about, and terrified by, the public. More importantly, the lives of politicians have become incomprehensible to ordinary people. Elizabeth Warren had trouble holding a beer bottle. Trump is forever riding that golden escalator into and out of his very own tower. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, once a bartender, now resembles a movie star treading the red carpet. Like a certain type of little dog, these hyperambitious organisms seem overbred to some singular purpose.

And here I have to deliver the bad news. The malady runs much deeper than this. At the heart of the crisis of representation we will discover an impossible longing for meaning and transcendence.

Mediated government is procedural business: As liberalism in action, it explicitly rejects any claims to cosmic significance. Officially, there can be no long march to utopia, no leader-worship, no regimented, “Triumph of the Will”-like torchlight parades. The system wraps the problem of meaning around its novel approach to the problem of freedom. Both are privatized. The citizen is liberated from the burdens of government service and granted a protected sphere of unimpeded activity. That is the realm where the big questions reside. We are free to pine after God—to attend church, synagogue, mosque or Masonic temple—so long as we keep it legal, and, as with all prurient affairs, comport ourselves with the proper discretion.

The arrangement made for an occasional collision and explosion worked surprisingly well for over a century. Catholics put up with Protestants, Christians with atheists, farmers with factory hands, hippies with suits, in that dynamic cluster of American aspiration we call the pursuit of happiness. Religion was only part of it. (I knew a taxi driver who derived his sense of worth from performing as a clown with the Shriners.) In this huge and restless country, the point was to belong somewhere, to be someone, to attain a web of human relations that nourished the spirit and helped make sense of the world.

Then came the fall. For reasons too complex to delve into here, the sources of meaning and spirituality began to wither and die. Attendance at religious services, for example, has tumbled precipitously. So has membership in Masonic organizations and participation in sports leagues for both children and adults. Connection to neighborhood and community has largely disappeared—the loss of trust in government in part reflects our lack of trust in one another. Families are broken or nonexistent. A nation of joiners and volunteers first dissolved into a passive TV audience—and finally blew apart, with a rude noise, among the volatile conflicts of the web.

Human nature hasn’t changed, however. We still crave justification. The loss of shared meaning condemns the individual to a terrible solitude at the edge of the abyss—and we shouldn’t be surprised by the pathological nature of the responses. In “The Anxious Generation,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt speaks of a “surge of suffering,” particularly among the young. Americans are afflicted with increased anxiety, depression, drug addiction and “deaths of despair,” to match a corresponding decline in marriage, childbearing, even sexual activity. The private sphere, formerly the realm of meaning, is now a wasteland haunted by accusing phantoms. The pursuit of happiness has come to feel like a panicked flight to nowhere.

The pathology has spilled over into politics. Hungry for a loftier state of being, many somehow imagine they have found it in bashing the dull machinery of representational government. These seekers have mistaken Leviathan for God, the will to power for the state of grace—and, by exalting political action almost literally to heaven, they have succumbed to what might be called the transcendental temptation. Only politics, they believe, can save the earth. Only politics can establish social justice. Only politics can preserve the “normies” from the pedophiles who run the country.

As it happens, they are demanding personal validation from an institution explicitly designed not to provide it.

Let me suggest a medical name for this cognitive disorder: “Greta Thunberg Syndrome.” Young Thunberg was one of Haidt’s sufferers, healed by the miracle of environmental activism.

“Before I started school striking I had no energy, no friends and I didn’t speak to anyone. I just sat at home, with an eating disorder,” she tweeted. “All that is gone now, since I have found a meaning, in a world that sometimes seems shallow and meaningless to so many people.”

Thunberg is a fairly typical specimen of those who confuse politics with redemption. With an almost gnostic fervor, she hates the society in which she lives quite comfortably, and keeps breathlessly anticipating its doom. She’s wholly focused on personal theater—not surprisingly, her father is an actor, her mother an opera singer—with few, if any, perceptible consequences. She’s sustained by the absolute certainty that she embodies Truth in the eternal war against Falsehood. Above all, she needs the fuel of rage to lift her spirit above this meaningless world—the angrier she gets, the happier she is...

As Thunberg admits, the temple of activism is often erected on a foundation of psychopathology. There appears to be more than a hint of self-loathing, even self-destructiveness, among those who vandalize ancient works of art or prevent commuters from reaching their jobs, so they can earn their brief instant in front of the cameras. These are not sturdy yeomen. If industrial society were to vanish in a flash, the activist class would go extinct soon after. The self-nullifying contradictions bubble up so close to the surface that one wonders how the people involved can remain unaware of them. The rank and file of Queers for Palestine, for instance, would be exterminated if transported to Gaza.

William James once wrote of the “divided self,” a personality prone to sudden shifts and conversions. Ours are fractured times. The religious impulse in politics should be understood as a fevered grab at wholeness—that is, at purity, simplicity, honesty, everything an evil age has denied the parched hearts of the rebels. The spirit of inquisition is strong. The enemy must be identified and silenced. Because the stakes are apocalyptic, villains can’t be allowed to shelter behind empty proceduralism. According to one poll, a majority of Americans believes the First Amendment, which protects free speech, goes “too far.” A similar majority favors government control of “false information.” Lies have no place in a purified celestial order. False opinion endures, not by right, but on sufferance.

“Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists,” stated a leader in the anti-Israel student protests at Columbia University. This was personal theater with genocidal intent.

Curiously, the progressive political class, long isolated and afraid, has found in this desperate hunger a link back to the public. It has no clue about meaning—but it has a talent for faking it. It’s able to strike heroic and uncompromising poses. For so small a price, progressive politicians have gained a potent weapon of control.

I find it very easy to imagine a government dominated by true believers in perpetual protest mode, mediated by more disciplined nongovernmental zealots, and administered, in the usual bungling manner, by the ruling elites. The media and academia will applaud, movies will be full of righteous vehemence, corporations will make commercials advertising their virtuous support. Representation, in that case, will be a transparent fiction, and Madison’s mechanisms against tyranny will fall into serious disrepair.

Where do we go from here? To begin with, we must think clearly about the crisis of representation. Part of it is structural. Mediation is intentional and no doubt necessary, but bloated paralysis was never the desired endpoint. Too many layers of mediation have accumulated between the ordinary citizen and elected officials. This not only alienates the citizen, who feels shunted to a vast antechamber crowded with frustrated petitioners—it also promotes the kind of hidden incompetence and lack of accountability we recently witnessed in the Secret Service...

But what are we to do with the fanatics who wish to turn government into a church and the private sphere into a puritanical zone of control? That, I think, is much more straightforward. We should recall that the activists are our fellow citizens, not Nazi stormtroopers or aliens from space. They are responding to an ancient existential need. As human beings, they should be treated with compassion. As political actors, however, they must be confronted and defeated. There’s no middle ground: Either we are equal and equally free or we’re nothing. The cosmic can have no truck with the transactional. As a cursory glance at 20th-century history should teach us, the transcendental temptation is indistinguishable from the totalitarian one." 

 

 

 

 

 

Links - 2nd August 2025 (1 - Islamophobia in the UK)

Fears mounting over free speech as Labour plans to define Islamophobia - "The Policy Exchange think-tank has said Labour's working group should be suspended, warning an official definition of Islamophobia would 'almost certainly turbocharge cancel culture'. After a review by Whitehall troubleshooter Baroness Casey found public bodies covered up evidence about Asian grooming gangs 'for fear of appearing racist', Policy Exchange said Labour's measures 'would have made exposing the grooming scandal even harder and slower'."
Of course, on reddit people were claiming that the article provided no evidence for the claim in the headline. So much for media literacy - left wingers can't even read and understand articles, much less get the "subtext"

University staff face punishment if they breach Labour’s Islamophobia definition - "University staff and students will face disciplinary action if they breach Labour’s new definition of Islamophobia, a cross-party group of peers has warned. More than 30 peers have written to the working group responsible for the new definition to warn that the proposals risk having a “chilling effect” on free speech... The peers cited the case of Sir Trevor Phillips, who was suspended by Labour for Islamophobia in 2020 after the party adopted a non-statutory definition drawn up by an all party parliamentary group jointly headed by Wes Streeting. They said: “The fact that your definition will be ‘non-statutory’ does not mean it will not have a chilling effect on free speech, particularly if it enjoys the stamp of government approval and various organisations feel obliged to embed it in their equity, diversity and inclusion policies, as well as workplace training course. “Our principal concern is that if your Working Group comes up with a definition and it is taken up by the Government it will have a chilling effect on free speech and exacerbate community tensions... Among the signatories to the letter are Lord Young, the director of the Free Speech Union; Lord Frost, the former cabinet minister; Baroness Hoey, the former Labour MP; and Baroness Deech, the chair of the Lords Appointments Commission... “The definition, if it is taken up, will have wide-ranging implications for what people in public life, and those who work for public bodies, or attend schools or universities, are able to say about Muslims and the religion of Islam, with – inevitably – serious repercussions for those who fall foul of the definition, even if those repercussions fall short of criminal prosecution. “Indeed, the Home Secretary has said she would like to see more ‘Non-Crime Hate Incidents’ (NCHIs) recorded against people guilty of ‘Islamophobia’ and, presumably, she will urge the police to operationalise your definition, once it’s been taken up by the Government, as part of the NCHI regime.”"
Of course, on reddit people were claiming that the Daily Mail's article could not be trusted and there was nothing to worry about. Guess the experts (who were mentioned in the Daily Mail article too, which also mentioned other experts) didn't get the memo

The Blogs: UK islamophobia definition: Blasphemy law in drag - "If there’s one thing British politicians hate more than telling the truth, it’s letting anyone else do it. In the end, the UK Labour government—in what might be the most refined form of cowardice since Neville Chamberlain waved his paper in the air—has crossed the Rubicon and unveiled its grand initiative to define “Islamophobia.” Not as a legal concept based on clear incitement, mind you, but as a pseudo-theological construct dressed up in civil service PowerPoint. A working group led by Dominic Grieve KC (who apparently moonlights as the Archbishop of Woke) is drawing up a non‑statutory definition of “anti‑Muslim hatred.” The public consultation closes July 20, and the stakes couldn’t be higher; not for Muslims, who deserve equal protection under the law like everyone else; but for everyone else, who might soon find that articulating facts about Islamism, communal crime, or religious misogyny is now treated as a hate offence. One thing should be clear: this isn’t about protecting Muslims from abuse, which any decent society already does under existing hate-crime law. This is about ring-fencing a set of ideas from scrutiny. It is about criminalizing dissent and dressing it up as anti-racism. And it is no accident that Labour adopted the APPG’s definition (which literally frames “expressions of Muslimness” as untouchable) while simultaneously refusing to adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism in full without footnotes and caveats. You’re allowed to hate Jews, just not too obviously. But question grooming gangs or Islamic schools and prepare for disciplinary proceedings. This is the old blasphemy law, rebooted through the language of diversity consultants. One can only marvel at the consistency of British elites: they won’t stop Hezbollah flags in London, but they’ll happily police your adjectives on Twitter. Say “Islamist” too many times, and a Home Office intern will slide into your inbox. The secular state is no longer secular; it is sharia-adjacent, appeasement-coded, and deeply unserious about liberty. Meanwhile, Angela Rayner is backpedalling like a clown on a unicycle. After supporting this definition in full Labour-speak, think “centering lived experiences” and “tackling systemic racism,” she now insists it won’t amount to censorship. Of course not. And Hamas Ministry of Information is a press freedom NGO. This is not some fringe initiative. It is a foundational moment in the UK’s cultural decay. The definition will shape police guidance, university codes, corporate HR manuals, and every institution terrified of being called racist by an anonymous DEI officer with a clipboard and zero intellectual curiosity. Speech will die not by legislation but by memo. Ask yourself: in a world where British Jews are attacked in broad daylight, where police stand idle at anti-Israel marches, and where synagogues require fortress-level security, why is the government spending taxpayer money defining microaggressions against Islam? Why is it that every measure to “protect minorities” ends up protecting one minority alone? Britain isn’t sleepwalking into censorship. It’s marching proudly, accompanied by the soft clinking of virtue-signalling glassware at Westminster receptions. And here’s the punchline: you can still criticize Judaism, Zionism, Israel, and every rabbi from here to Jerusalem with state-sanctioned gusto. But call out jihadism or quote Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and you’re a racist. That’s not anti-racism. That’s surrender. Islam is not a race. Ideas don’t need protection—people do. And a free society doesn’t hand out fatwas in bureaucratic prose."
Of course, on reddit people were claiming that the Islamophobia definition mirrored the IHRA anti-Semitism definition, so there were no issues here

Why Britain’s elites give a free pass to Islamism - "The BBC’s recent documentary about Gaza has been revealed to be thinly veiled pro-Hamas propaganda. The Beeb’s decision to produce and air it reaffirms a disturbing truth: the British establishment is incapable of reckoning with Islamism...   When it comes to Islamism, the British establishment has an undeniable blind spot. Instead of facing up to the threat of radical Islam, the liberal media and state agencies have hidden behind a façade of multicultural tolerance. Anyone who dares criticise Islam or its extremist offshoots is tarred as a far-right ‘Islamophobe’.  This has reached a point where the UK now has quasi-blapshemy laws protecting Islam from criticism. Earlier this month, a man was attacked with a knife outside the Turkish consulate in London while he was burning a Koran. The attacker was arrested – but so was the man he had attacked. Just a week before, another man was not only arrested in Manchester for setting fire to a Koran, but the police then also released a picture of his face, his full name and even the street he lives on. This was despite the obvious risk of violence this could subject him to. The message was clear: ‘Islamophobia’ may not technically be illegal in the UK – yet – but if you criticise Islam, you may still find yourself in trouble with the law as well as a violent mob. For the British establishment, Islam is treated less as a religion and more a racial badge. To attack Islamist extremism is supposedly to attack a ‘brown-skinned’ community – a notion that smothers debate and only deepens divides between Muslims and non-Muslims.   Apparently, to criticise political Islam – or heaven forbid, the religion of Islam itself – is to engage in crude ‘populism’. Concern about Islamism is considered the preserve of a low-brow, working-class sentiment. Anyone who raises the alarm must be little more than an uneducated, racist rabble-rouser.  In turn, many in the elite see themselves as the protectors of Muslims, as shielding them from the hordes of neo-fascists in the working classes (even though these are largely imaginary). Others fear being seen as Islamophobic. This is exactly what allowed horrors like the grooming gangs to go on for so long. It has also let Islamist terror attacks unfold unchallenged.   No doubt this same patronising view of Muslims contributed to the BBC’s screw-ups over that Gaza documentary. In the Beeb’s black-and-white worldview, Muslims must always be the victims. Even if those Muslims might be members of Hamas, which is waging a genocidal, anti-Semitic war against Israel. A society that refuses to recognise the dangers of radical Islam will struggle to protect its citizens from the consequences – whether that’s terror attacks or the shutting down of free speech by mob rule. The free pass we’ve given to Islamism must be revoked immediately."

Rupert Lowe MP on X - "This is Britain. We do not have blasphemy laws, and we must not have blasphemy laws. Burning the Quran is not a crime. Free speech means protecting the right to offend, including Islam. More politicians should have the courage to say so."
Adnan Hussain MP on X - "What Rupert actually wants to say is:- Free speech means protecting the right to offend Muslims."
Rupert Lowe MP on X - "Yes, I do believe the right to offend Muslims must be protected. The right to offend anyone must be protected."
Adnan Hussain MP on X - "It's deeply worrying, Rupert, that you invest so much energy into advocating for the right to offend a minority community. Free speech comes with limitations and protections, clearly you're not happy with those protections extending to a Muslim minority, why?"
Rupert Lowe MP on X - "The establishment’s total unwillingness to criticise Islam in any form has paved the way for your absurd attitude. It's arrogant, it's entitled, it's sinister. The approach has to change."
Isn't it Islamophobic to perpetuate the stereotype that Muslims do not understand British values like free speech? Adnan Hussain should be jailed

Robert Jenrick on X - "In February a man was arrested for allegedly burning a Quran. Now he’s been charged with intent to cause distress ‘against the religious institution of Islam’. Parliament abolished blasphemy laws in 2008. They mustn’t be reintroduced by the back-door."
Tom Harwood on X - "In no liberal society should ‘causing distress to a religious institution’ be a crime."
Matt Ridley on X - "It took centuries to abolish the crime of blasphemy and many suffered in the cause. We are decivilising."
Jonatan Pallesen on X - "Here in Denmark we finally cancelled the blasphemy law in 2017. That was the final remnant, and we were heading towards a fully free and liberal society. Then in 2023 we made the Quran law, going backwards again."

UK Stabbing Suspect Pleads Muslim | Babylon Bee - ""I'm afraid there's little that can be done at this point," said lead Crown Prosecutor Aleister Burlington. "We thought we had all the evidence needed to convict the suspect, but pleading ‘Muslim' is an airtight defense. Had we realized he was a Muslim, we would have never brought the charges in the first place. We were under the impression that this was a horribly violent stabbing and weren't aware that it was a traditional, ceremonial Islamic stabbing."  The suspect's barrister emphasized the importance of entering the plea. "There's simply no way my client can be charged with a crime," said Ellington Bedfordshire. "At the time he committed the stabbing, he was a practicing Muslim, thereby absolving him of any guilt in the incident. His inherent Muslimness weighed heavily into his decision to go stabbing in the first place. By entering our plea of ‘Muslim,' it is our hope that this case will be thrown out altogether, as it should. Muslim."  At publishing time, the UK court had apologized to the suspect and instead brought charges against the stabbing victim for getting in the way of the attacker's knife."

Lord Talbot on X - "What did I say a few days ago? Islam is using labour until it is strong enough to dump them and take over. Well, here they are saying it themselves."

RadioGenoa on X - "A Muslim attacks a British couple just because they eat pork. They also want to dictate to us what we should eat or drink. For Keir Starmer problem in England is Islamophobia."

Islamist gangs are taking over Britain’s jails – and radicalising criminals - "The young man grinning in the sun is Baz Hockton – a troubled and dangerous individual with a string of convictions. Not long after this seaside trip, he will be jailed for stabbing two men with a knife.  Then, while in custody in January 2020, having converted to Islam, he carried out the first terrorist attack within the walls of a British prison, at the high-security Whitemoor jail, in Cambridgeshire.  The events of that day, when Hockton and terrorist plotter Brusthom Ziamani strapped on fake suicide belts, armed themselves with makeshift metallic weapons and tried to murder a prison officer, represented a huge wake-up call for the authorities about the threat posed by Islamist extremists in jail.  But, in some quarters at least, not enough appears to have been done to counter it... Frankland, a high-security prison where Abedi is serving life for 22 murders, has become “overrun” with Islamist gangs who threaten to attack or kill other prisoners if they don’t join up.  HMP Frankland is by no means an isolated case.  Former inmates have spoken about a war in a number of prisons between Islamist gangs and rival groups involving acts of grotesque violence. The skirmishes are not as frequent now, but it’s not because authorities have seized back control. Instead it is said to be because the Islamist gangs have won the power battle, with many inmates converting to their side and leaving others who will not increasingly fearful for their safety. “It’s a real problem, very complex and it won’t go away any time soon,” says Steve Gillan, general secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association (POA). “Some prisoners are intimidated into joining a gang. Others do it for protection, because there’s safety in numbers, or they think there’s a status to be in a Muslim gang – they think they’ll be treated better, always allowed to go to prayers on a Friday [for example], and have better food in the evenings at Ramadan.”... Gary*, who served a long sentence at a number of jails across the country, says Islamist gangs have now established a “foothold” in the six Category A, high-security prisons, as well as several others.  “They are feared. They pretty much run the prisons,” he says. “A lot of them have merged with drug gangs – being able to sell drugs and accumulate wealth is a very powerful thing in the prison system.”  Gary describes how some prisoners are pressured into joining Islamist gangs while others, who are prepared to convert, are welcomed in – even those, in the hierarchy of criminals, considered to be the lowest of the low: sex offenders. “In Islam, if you convert, all your previous sins are washed away. The Muslim gangs stood by that principle for people in for sex offences. It fractured the culture of the prison system. I was there watching it for years on end, it was obvious it was going to turn into a big problem,” he says.  In 2022, a disturbing report by Jonathan Hall KC, the reviewer of anti-terrorism legislation, found that faith-based self-segregation by prisoners had provided a “fertile base for violent Islamist activity” in which attacks on non-Muslim inmates, staff and the public were “encouraged”. The report said charismatic or violent prisoners acted as “self-styled emirs” to radicalise the wider Muslim prison population, exerting control through a network of “enforcers” over access to prayer meetings, the prison kitchens and showers. In some cases, Sharia courts had been set up in jails to rule on matters of Islamic law, delivering punishments such as flogging.  Hall said the prison authorities had “underappreciated” the impact of Islamist groups for too long, partly due to a tendency to regard Islam as a “no-go area”. Gillan, whose union represents over 30,000 prison officers and other staff, agrees: “A lot of staff backed off because they were frightened of being accused of racism. They were a wee bit cautious about identifying individuals for fear of reprisals,” though he adds that officers are now more confident to call it out, thanks to greater awareness of the problem, improved training and more intelligence sharing... a lawyer visiting clients at HMP Frankland – which houses some of the most dangerous inmates in the country and possesses one of the country’s three separation centres – claimed prisoners had been placed in segregation for their own protection after standing up to Islamist gangs."

Islam Channel watched by millions facing Ofcom investigation - "Britain’s most successful Muslim TV channel has been accused of glorifying violent Islamist movements, inciting hostility against the West and portraying jihadist causes in a sympathetic light.  The Islam Channel is now facing an investigation by the broadcasting regulator over claims it breaches rules on impartiality and incites extremism.  A complaint submitted to Ofcom accuses the channel of repeatedly broadcasting material praising the Oct 7 attacks and comparing Israel to the Nazis.  It is also accused of giving airtime to extremists, failing to maintain impartiality in its political coverage and misleading viewers over key facts.  The channel – which claims it has two million viewers daily and is estimated by official figures to be watched by 60 per cent of British Muslims – could be penalised over its content if an Ofcom investigation finds against it. A report highlighting multiple alleged breaches of the Broadcasting Code by the Islam Channel between November 2024 and January 2025, has been submitted to the regulator by Dr Taj Hargey, the director of the Oxford Institute for British Islam.  Dr Hargey, regarded as a liberal thinker within British Islam, claims the channel consistently portrays Islam as under siege from an oppressive West; presents Hamas, Iran and Islamist Jihadi groups as legitimate “resistance” movements against Western secular liberal democracies; and fails to include the Israeli government or pro-Israel speakers in its coverage of Gaza.  He also accuses it of promoting a narrow Wahhabi-Salafi version of Islam while excluding Muslims belonging to Shiah, Sufi and Ahmadi denominations, as well as secular liberal Muslims.  Dr Hargey alleges that the Islam Channel repeatedly presents a one-sided view of events. He claims that its news programme, Islam Channel News, used the sentencing of Southport killer Axel Rudakubana to attack the UK government’s counter-terrorism programme Prevent while omitting the fact that he was in possession of an Al-Qaeda training manual.  Dr Hargey also points to the channel’s alleged attempt to champion convicted terrorist Aafia Siddiqui as an innocent Muslim victim of the “War on Islam”, in a documentary broadcast in January, without mentioning her links to Al-Qaeda and her attempts to kill US officers... The Channel’s presenters and guests are accused of promoting an unquestioning view of radical Islam, with no mention of the violation of women’s rights under the current Taliban regime in Afghanistan or Iran’s theocracy.  Dr Hargey also accuses the channel of failing to mention the Oct 7 Hamas attacks during a programme on the Gaza conflict in December and of repeating claims that Israeli forces target journalists without allowing the Israeli government or Israeli Defence Forces to respond. In the letter of complaint to Ofcom, Dr Hargey alleges: “The station’s persistent lack of impartiality, spread of harmful rhetoric, and engagement in political advocacy appear to directly contravene the principles set out in the Broadcasting Code.”  The Islam Channel was founded in 2004 by businessman Mohamed Harrath, who was granted refugee status by the UK in 2000 after fleeing Tunisia, where he had set up the Tunisian Islamic Front to provide what he said was non-violent opposition to Ben Ali’s dictatorship.  Mr Harrath was arrested in South Africa on terrorism charges in 2010, after the Tunisian authorities added him to Interpol’s Red Notice list. He was later released without charge and accused the Tunisians of using Interpol to harass him. In a Christmas Day broadcast last year, Mr Harrath compared the situation of Muslims in Britain to that of the Jews in 1930s Germany under the rise of the Nazis, stating: “There is a targeting of the Muslim community. . . There is another way to learn from history. From the Jewish community. They were well off in Germany and they thought nothing would happen. . . We have to fight. We have to fight back.”... The channel was awarded the Responsible Media of the Year award at the British Muslim Awards in 2014 and 2015.  But it has also been found to have been sanctioned by Ofcom in the past for “serious and repeated” breaches of the Broadcasting Code... In November 2010, the channel was censured by Ofcom for allowing presenters to advocate marital rape and domestic abuse.  In September 2023, Ofcom found that its one-hour documentary The Andinia Plan amounted to hate speech against Jewish people.  Dr Hargey told The Telegraph: “Islam Channel epitomises hideous Islamic fundamentalism in the UK. It purports to represent British Muslims, but its sectarian ideology is nothing but an insidious initiative to mainstream Muslim extremism and fanaticism in this country.  “It revels in their ‘them and us’ narrative, inhibiting any effective social cohesion. Ofcom needs to take decisive action to mitigate the channel’s incendiary language and partisan guests who do not subscribe to traditional British values.”"

Lion of London Bridge, Roy Larner 'on anti-terror watch list' - "The 'Lion of London Bridge' who was hailed a hero for fighting off knife-wielding jihadis during the terror attack said he is on an anti-terror watch list after being contacted by far-right anti-Islam supporters.   Roy Larner, 49, screamed, 'f*** you, I'm Millwall,' as he took on the knife murderers when they struck in June 2017 while he was enjoying a pint in the Black & Blue restaurant in Borough Market, in Southwark, south-east London.  But Mr Larner has since been placed on the Government's Prevent programme over fears that he could become an extremist after he was contacted by far-right yobs. He has had to attend de-radicalisation classes and police are monitoring him"
Keywords: de-radicalization classes

Basil the Great on X - "🚨☪️FORMER LABOUR MP SAYS: "A time will come that there will be a law in place all over the world that there can be no disrespect to our prophet" They want a Blasphemy Law for Islam. They say it openly in Public. They must be stopped."

Islamophobia training cancelled over teachers’ anti-Semitic posts - "A training session for psychotherapists on tackling Islamophobia was cancelled after three academics leading the event were accused of posting anti-Semitic material on social media.  Messages posted or shared by the trainers on X described Israel as a Nazi state and referred to “a Zionism problem” in healthcare institutions.  The event, organised by the professional body for psychotherapists, had been intended to help therapists and wellbeing practitioners become aware of the impact of Islamophobia on mental health.  But the British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) cancelled the session after complaints about the three trainers prompted an internal investigation into their social media activities.  The speakers at the May 15 event were to have been Ghazala Mir, a professor of health equity and inclusion at the University of Leeds; Dr Tarek Younis, senior lecturer in psychology at Middlesex University.    An investigation was launched by the BABCP after UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), a legal charity, brought a number of their social media posts to its attention.  These included Prof Mir allegedly sharing posts which claimed that the “Zionist movement” placed “assets” from the state of Israel into the House of Lords and making references to “Zionist paymasters”.  Her posts also describe Israel as responsible for “genocide and apartheid”, both terms which are regarded as anti-Semitic by many Jews.  She also shared posts that equated Zionism with Nazism and described Israel as a Nazi state, a comparison regarded as anti-Semitic as defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.  On Oct 1 2024, Prof Mir reposted a tweet expressing “pure joy” at an Iranian missile attack against Israel  In May 2024, Dr Younis wrote on X that “our healthcare institutions have a Zionism problem” and stated the following month: “Our work isn’t done until all Zionists are removed from our institutions and are shamed, alongside all racists, into nothingness”.  Dr Younis has also compared Zionists to fascists in a social media post. Earlier this year Dr Younis wrote a report on the psychological impact of Palestinian dispossession, which was submitted in support of the legal bid to have the ban on the terror group Hamas lifted in the UK."

Kent news: Christian patient forced out of hospital chapel by 'Muslim doctors' - "A retired author was left outraged after being told to move by "a group of Muslim men" in a hospital chapel.  Graham Wanstall said he was visiting Kent and Canterbury Hospital as a patient when he went to the facility's chapel for a moment of reflection and prayer.  However, not long after he had been in the chapel, a group of men entered and immediately asked him to move "very abruptly".  Wanstall, from Dover, said he felt "belittled and humiliated" by the men who he said were doctors at the hospital... Wanstall has said that while he has been liaising with the hospital, he is calling for separate spaces for Muslims to practice their faith.  He told GB News: "The signage says chapel, and when you go in, it's just a chapel. There's a cross, maybe a picture of Christ, an altar and chairs.  "There are no signs of any other religion, and it doesn't say multi-faith room. But I understand, unofficially, they use it because they haven't got their own room.  "I don't go around preaching to anybody about my faith, but I strongly object to being interfered with when I'm in a Christian chapel and when I'm effectively thrown out and asked to move, I strongly object to that."

Right-wing YouTuber charged over video criticising Muslim councillor - "Craig Houston, who has nearly 70,000 subscribers, was arrested on Friday after a report of an online communication offence. The charge is understood to relate to a video in which Houston criticised Soryia Siddique, a Labour member for Glasgow city council’s Southside Central ward... In his original video — which has not been removed from YouTube — Houston accused Siddque of “fanning” racism by complaining that ethnic minorities were underrepresented, saying this was “bonkers”... In a clip for ElectHer, a campaign group which helps women get into politics, she said she had been surprised by how “pale, male and stale” the environment she entered was."
Right-wing YouTuber charged over video criticising Muslim councillor : r/unitedkingdom - "Imagine if I described the politics of a council as black, female, and whale..  I wonder how quickly the police would come knocking?"
If you call out a "minority"'s racism and sexism, you need to be jailed