It’s Not You, Islam, It’s Us
Whenever I find myself swelling with a pleasant sense of righteous indignation, I wonder what exactly I’m getting wrong.
Thus, for instance, when I hear that Afghans and other Muslims are rioting and murdering people — including American soldiers — because the American military burned some Korans at Bagram Airfield in Kabul, I try very hard not to harrumph and start spouting such banalities as: “Ungrateful savages and their benighted religion! Ought to be gunned down, the lot of them!” Sure, the Korans had already been defaced by detainees trying to send extremist messages. And yes, American officials from the president down to a guy cleaning latrines at FOB Kalagush have apologized profusely. But before we condemn the rioters, American flag burners and murderers out of hand, let’s be fair.
After all, it was not that long ago, that this very blog — from which I get most of my information — included a post paying homage to the Jews of ancient Palestine, who stood up to the Romans in defense of what, to the Romans, must have seemed a pretty intolerant and backward faith. I argued that it was this very Jewish intransigence, later refined by Jesus, that ultimately gave rise to our western conviction that the religious conscience of man is sacred and deserves protection from rulers of all stripes. (Unless it gets in the way of my scoring some free abortion pills, in which case forget I said anything.)
Now you may respond: “But the Jews of ancient Palestine never wanted to spread their religion to the world. Plus, they took their stand 2,000 years ago and Jews have learned a thing or two since then. In fact, Jews, singly and en masse, are now among the greatest contributors to the good of mankind the world has ever known, whereas the Muslims invented coffee and then called it a day.” To which I would say: “Shut up. Who let you onto my blog?” Because you have to admit that these Afghan riots really could be a scene right out of Josephus. An imperial power — the Romans/us — marches into a backward nation — Palestine/Afghanistan — insults their religion — Judaism/Islam — and sets off exactly the kind of behavior one would expect from the locals — the defense of religious freedom/chaos and murder.
What else do you expect? Pre-medieval people who believe they are called by God to reduce the rest of the world to their own state of misery are going to kill people when you insult them. That’s how they roll.
The problem isn’t them. It’s us.
Consider the following:
In Denmark, author Lars Hedegaard was recently fined 5,000 kroner (roughly a thousand bucks), for pointing out that Islam seems to encourage rape. He was giving an interview in his own home at the time he made the remarks. Truth, under Danish law, is no defense.
In Iran, meanwhile, Christian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani was recently sentenced to death (roughly death) for converting from the religion of peace to a religion that actually believes in peace. Converting to Christianity is a capital offense in Iran, especially if there are aggravating circumstances, like you’re caught loving your neighbor or acting charitably.
In Pennsylvania, a Muslim judge dismissed charges against a Muslim who assaulted an atheist for insulting Mohammed with an anti-Mohammed costume. Judge Mark Martin then scolded — you guessed it — the victim of the assault, saying:
Islam is not just a religion, it’s their culture, their culture. It’s their very essence, their very being… Then what you have done is you have completely trashed their essence, their being. They find it very very very offensive. I’m a Muslim, I find it offensive. But you have that right, but you’re way outside your boundaries or first amendment rights.
In Afghanistan, under the aegis of American troops, they are destroying Christian churches. In New York, Mayor Bloomberg and others are laboring to build a mosque near the site of the 9/11 massacre by Islamists. In Egypt, it’s Spring Time for Mohammed as the new post-Mubarak regime — which was supported by the United States — goes about tormenting, murdering, raping and displacing hundreds of thousands of Coptic Christians. In Washington, the FBI — tasked with protecting America from Islamic radicals — is purging its training materials of any information deemed offensive by Islamic radicals. (Follow the link — I’m not making it up.)
My point is this. We can’t stop people in Islamic nations from being what they are — can’t stop them from oppressing women, murdering gays, banning other religions and tormenting non-believers. But it’s not too much to ask that we stand up for our own values contra theirs — especially in our own, once Christian, countries. We can stop penalizing and insulting those who speak the simple truth about Islamic values, good or bad; we can de-bench judges who don’t stand up for our freedoms; we can stop sentimentalizing Islamic rights to the point of sanctioning intolerance, especially while our own government is attempting to stomp on the rights of Catholics and ignoring the rise in hate crimes against Jews; we can stop confusing Islam with a race — it’s a religion, a metaphysical philosophy of life, and has to be open to question, debate, ridicule and attack like every other.
Let Islamics in their countries stand for what they stand for. But if only to give the world a point of comparison, let’s us stand for something too. Let’s stand for — oh, I don’t know — how about liberty and the rights of individuals versus every principality and power from thuggish Islamists to the feckless president of the United States? And when Muslims — or anyone else — transgresses those fundamental beliefs, let us all say so fearlessly — or at least support and encourage those who do. We cannot be willfully blind to the despicable simply because it goes by the name of an alien god.
So riot and kill away, my Afghan friends. That apparently is who you are.
The only real question is: Who are we?
Here we have a clear demonstration of the differences between American and Afghan cultures. Each believes that it is acting properly according to its own rules. We have a worked example of why not all cultures should be seen as of equal worth—at least by Western standards.
How many people from western counties wish to move to the Middle East? How many folks from counties with Islamic cultures want to come to the West?
Who are we: we are a country with a disappearing segment that made the country into what it is. That segment is totally disconnected with the Federal bureaucracy addicted to the disappearance of that segment in favor of a nation that resembles a United Nations quorum. In short we are dedicated to importing people that didn’t make this country based on the notion that America’s history has been one giant injustice from beginning to end. These issues wouldn’t even come up without our dedication to immigration from the Third World but we have to smooth out the way to make the house we designed and are slowly leaving as nice for failure as possible. It little matters that America will one day resemble Harrisburg and Detroit because we have “faith” that all men are created equal, without even understanding why slave-holders against the common and female vote would utter such a phrase.
“Ungrateful savages and their benighted religion! Ought to be gunned down, the lot of them!”
Not a banality, but the simple truth.
The only thing they are capable of respecting and understanding is fear.
Exactly right, Andrew. If we do not know who we are and are not able to stand up for what we believe, we have no standing to object against those who do.
The whole Middle East is a tinderbox cheer led by the One World Government People and the Islamists. But, with power will come the killing. Oh they don’t just turn the killing against the Jews and Christians; they also turn against their fellow Muslims and other minority sects. Our only hope in all this turmoil is that they turn the killing on themselves and are too busy with that, so they leave us alone. A sad commentary and a terrible legacy for electing Barry as President. He’s Islam’s man on the inside.
Difference between Rome in Judaea and the US in Afghanistan:
Rome demanded that the Israelites change their religious practice. The US make s no such demand on Afghans.
Meanwhile: That “Moslem” judge in Pennsylvania is actually a Lutheran, a Republican, and an Iraq War veteran. He dismissed the charges against the enraged Moslem because the actual evidence was too weak to sustain a conviction. He lectured the plaintiff (which IMO he shouldn’t have done) because the plaintiff is a smart-ass atheist punk. The plaintiff seems to think the success of his elaborate and gratuitous provocation of Moslems makes him a civil-liberties martyr. (A lot of Moslems make a point of being offended – that doesn’t mean it’s not possible to be really offensive to Moslems.)
Could you provide the evidence that the PA Judge Mark Martin is a ‘Lutheran’ and ‘Republican’? Also that the evidence was too weak to convict the Islamic assaulter?
To my knowledge the actual assault was caught on video tape. And the assaulter admitted to the assault. The ‘judge’ would not allow the videotape as evidence and would not listen to the police officer who took the verbal evidence of both sides. Instead, the judge ‘evaluated’ the case solely on his own opinion – that it was ‘unacceptable’ to mock another religion. But, this is America, and we DO mock other religions..and cultures…and mode of behavior and belief. We don’t attack or kill anyone who does this; they do that in Other Cultures.
“But, this is America, and we DO mock other religions..and cultures…and mode of behavior and belief.”
Unless the adherants of that religion (culture, political belief, economic system, whatever…) are willing to harass, assault, kill, maim, mutilate, rape, or commit any numerous other crimes against those who “dare” to mock their religion. Then many are willing to capitulate, or force others to capitulate, to those who are willing to intimidate, assault, kill, ect others. Christians, Hindus, Jews, and many others are not willing to go into a psychotic rage over mockery and therefor are targets for mockery, but not the religion whos adherants kill… well for any reason they can create.
Do I see an American community becoming enraged? I damn well better, and this so called judge needs to be shown the way out of town. He is required to uphold our laws only, and needs his di.k knocked into the dirt and ran out of town!!!
Were being offensive a crime, half the people on city streets would be arrested, or in court. There are and can be no Constitutional guarantees against being offended. It is a crime to murder people, and no religion can support a contrary conviction on that, not in the USA. There are boats and planes leaving daily, for those who do not respect our law: you might check it out.
And just is where your proof?
Judge M Martin himself, in court, said that he is a Muslim. If that is not true then he is a liar. And if he is a liar what kind of a judge is he?
What kind of judge is he?
Why a common run-of-the-mill judge. Only the best-of-the-best
lying, thieving, reprehensibleattorneys become judges after all.“Rome demanded that the Israelites change their religious practices.”
No, they didn’t.
Like most of the other assertions in your comment, this is false.
It’s strange that the Jews get no redress for gratuitous provocation by Muslims and others.
Obama’s cowardly act of apology has incited these killings. Instead, he ought to have said:
1) You, Muslims, yourself defaced these Korans by using them to send extremist messages to each other. Why did YOU deface these writings, re-interpret them even though they are the direct word of God, and use them for sending ungodly messages?
2)Why does that Koran, in its writings direct from God, order all people who follow your religion, to kill anyone who doesn’t? Why do you behave this way?
Good points. Makes me recall a particularly disgusting interview with Hilary right before she went on air in Pakistan to listen to their gripes toward the US. She said something to the effect of: My God, they certainly have reason to be angry at us.
Does anybody know what that is exactly?
1. Bombing those who terrorize Pakistan’s own citizens? (Unless, of course, the Pakistani people are sympathetic toward terrorists.)
2. Militarily supporting them for years to assuage their pathological fear of India?
3. Billions in foreign aid?
And all this despite the fact that THEY created the Taliban, who brought us–inarguably righteously–to Afghanistan and Pakistan’s doorstep, and the powers that be in their government arm, support, and abet terrorists–including, in all likelihood, most despicably hiding the most bloodthirsty terrorist of our age: Osama bin Laden.
And Hilary thinks they have reason the be mad.
I love the last part:
“So riot and kill away, my Afghan friends. That apparently is who you are.”
And its about time we start judging liberals by their words and deeds for who they are.
1. Hateful of their own culture,
2. tolerant of–and even nostalgic for–tyrants,
3. amoral,
4. reverent for the emotional, and suspicious of the logical,
5. uneasy with democracy and downright afraid of individual liberty,
6. contemptuous of honor and valor,
7. bigoted toward Christianity and Judaism and embracing of the least tolerant religion on the planet,
8. spitefully sexist,
9. celebratory of dishonor, unfaithfulness, and even out-and-out treason. and
10.suspicious of traditional family, instinctually at ease with government intervention.
This is NOT anything that I merely suspect, this is what (with perhaps a few loaded exceptions) they profess. We wisely have come to take the muslims at their word, why are we afraid to refer to liberals for what they themselves define themselves to be? That is, apparently, who they are.
You said it Keith !
The perfect column.
Thank you.
The absolute need to point out the failure of Islam as a viable 21st century culture is long overdo. The Western habit of excusing or accepting despicable behaviour must cease. If these throwbacks ever acquire WMDs, rest assured that they would use them on the flimsiest of pretexts. Islam is a culture/religion of the sword based upon conquest. It has not changed in 1300 years. It is folly to believe the West can lead by example or convince this great mass of ignorant humanity to change their worldview. When faced with a rabid animal one does not pause to discuss the finer points of biologic diversity.
Right on Andrew. Religion of peace, my a$$. Islam’s belief that you must put those who convert to other beliefs to the sword shows its inherient weakness as a philosophy. The fact that our society is riddled with foolish leaders who think we should somehow tolerate Islam’s most odious practices demonstrates just how deluded these politically correct morons are. Islamic law is incompatable with the US Constitution. It doesn’t surprise me that the lefties don’t get that. They are so blind that they can’t see that in Islamic society those on the left would be the first to be silenced. If you think I am wrong, just look at what has happened in Iran and Egypt.
At some point there is going to be a major confrontation between Islam and the west. Islam will probably get off the first shot, just as they did at Khobar and on 9/11. My bet is that they won’t fire the last shot.
And while were at it, why don’t we stop all the idiotic chatter about a “war on terrorism”. We’re not fighting a tactic, were fighting zealots who wish to kill us.
Muslim’s riot and kill each other for any and no reason.
It could even be an act that is later proven to be a myth.
How many Korans got burned? 4.
How many people of both sides got killed? 30 and counting.
Which is worse, killing people or burning books?
That’s according to who and what and where.
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”
-General Charles Napier, c.1840s
Sindh Province, India (modern day Pakistan)
I just love that quote. I’ve always felt it is a guide to successful occupation of countries with retrograde religions or customs.
Frankly though it is time we left that awful place and its intolerant and violent people. We would not be leaving in defeat. We could trash the place if we wanted, but what is the point? If ever there were a place and people not worth the powder to blow then to hell it is Afghanistan and Afghanistanis. They have been stuck on stupid for a few centuries now, and not even the modern equivalent of Napier’s gallows will get them unstuck.
Perhaps our Napier strategy is to declare that we understand they are religiously and culturally inclined to set up terrorist training facilities, but that we are religiously and culturally inclined to lob small nuclear weapons at such facilities wherever they may be. They do their thing; we do ours.
I just love that quote. I’ve always felt it is a guide to successful occupation of countries with retrograde religions or customs.
Frankly though it is time we left that awful place and its intolerant and violent people. We would not be leaving in defeat. We could trash the place if we wanted, but what is the point? If ever there were a place and people not worth the powder to blow them to hell it is Afghanistan and Afghanistanis. They have been stuck on stupid for a few centuries now, and not even the modern equivalent of Napier’s gallows will get them unstuck.
Perhaps our Napier strategy is to declare that we understand they are religiously and culturally inclined to set up terrorist training facilities, but that we are religiously and culturally inclined to lob small nuclear weapons at such facilities wherever they may be. They do their thing; we do ours.
the tradition of widows throwing themselves onto their husband’s pyre is rooted in the history of muslim subjugation and sex slavery of hindu women…
they killed themselves to prevent being taken as slaves by muslims..
there is no Hindu scripture that allows for that act..
Thank you!
Most don’t know the Moghuls killed about 100 million Indians in their 600 years of ‘peaceful occupation’.
Akhbar, ‘The Great’, bragged at 30,000 dead at one of his routine genocides
(‘devoted to just law, civil rights, and equality’ per the BBC)
Let us also not forget the 125 million dead in 1000 years of slave wars in
Africa. Or the erasure of all history in Africa and Hindu-Bhuddist Central Asia (such as Afghanistan). Or the near elimination of all pre-Islamic cultures in the Middle East. Or the Pharoanic Copts, and Berber, of No.Africa.
I believe the pyre traditions may have some roots in neolithic IndoEuropean traditions of human sacifice by fire.
European pagans did. Catholic witch-burnings resurrected the Old religion ways.
The Habiru- ‘refugee’, or Old Testament Hebrews, killed those who would not stop living sacrifice to the Ba’al (Ba “fire”, -al or -el “god”).
(The western or Canaanite sheepherders also had conflict with the other Old fertility religions of the Snake, the Goddess, and the Bull.)
The habiru cattleherders who went east blended with Dravidians and became India. More blending, less conflict, with the Old religions there.
this is wonderful. thanks for sharing it!
We are the people who are helping the Islamists with our money and with our soldiers. We are helping them destroy churches, persecute Christians. We helped establish the KLA in Yugoslavia. We’re helping Iran get nukes, and we’ll probably end up fighting for Islamists in Syria. And we may, eventually, help Islam by making war on Israel.
That’s who we are. Pretty, eh? Perhaps it’s only just that, having helped Islam oppress others, we’re not getting a bit of taste of that ourselves, from our bestest bodies in the world, in Afghanistan. Though I don’t want to see our president turn any of our troops over to the mob, for the “crime” of burning a Koran.
Oh, no, no, no, don’t believe a word of it! They like us, they really like us! Just sit back and watch that swell movie about our swell Navy Seals! Even if we’re dhimmis in the real world, we can always look tough on the silver screen, where our soldiers fight an evil Jew named Christo!
(Hmmmm, considering our worsening relations with Israel, and the help we’ve given Islam against Christians, is there a little demonization going on, here? Oh, surely not! Just shut up, and eat your popcorn!)
Rich, the smart, punk atheist had a video with him. He had evidence. Get over it.
He was assaulted. Get over it.
Just being a judge, a Lutheran and an Iraqi war vet doesn’t mean one also can’t be a flaming idiot. This judge is trying to institute Shari’a law here in the west. (Hmmm, did he convert during his stint in Iraq? Are more of our veterans liable to convert, after our military has drilled into them sensitivity to Islam, and the need to defer to Moslems?)
And, last time I checked, it wasn’t against the law to mock, or criticize, Islam—no, not even for smart, punk atheists.
A lot of Moslems make a point of being always offended. And there appears to be nothing that can be done to appease them. Except for accepting Islam. Which many Americans aren’t about to do.
This judge needs to be removed asap, as in handcuffs. He is required to support christian law as is the basis of our laws. He’s a target now for total censorship. I will leave that meaning as it is stated!!
RUN FOOL!!!
They’re rioting because they’ve been told all their lives (as part of Islam) that the infidel is evil and plotting and oppressive and hates them and God insists that they fight us and prevail and rule…
So whenever we do anything that fits into that narrative the nutcases run with it and they’re primed to go. All that hatred and violence is their way of proving their piety, it’s the Muslim version of a good deed.
It’s a good idea for the President to try to calm the waters if he can (not sure he can) because he certainly isn’t gonna scare them into giving up on piety.
On the other hand, Newt Gingrich just made a speech where he lies and paints the picture as if the murders were orchestrated by the Karsai government and so inventing this outrage from the whole cloth of a lie, he can make Obama seem absolutely craven for not responding to an outrage that does not in fact exist.
I wait, with baited breath for anyone on PJ Media to show that they care about honesty here and write an article denouncing Newts lie!
Apparently, you think that you are smarter than Newt Gingrich!! Oblowhole doesn’t hold a candle next to him in a debate and yet, you are so super smart??? Get real fool.
Muslims are nothing more than the roaches that we need to stomp on and prove to them that we will not give in to their crap!!!
Better yet a policy of containment, severe travel restrictions, re-patriation, and zero tolerance for nukes.
Not interested in trying to convince these hatefilled violent oppressors that they are behaving like 7th century barbarians….whilst they rape our women, and kill our children, colonize our cities.
And if that doesnt work, then we can show them once again who is technologically superior.
Darn tootin’ … America is mainly in compliance with Muslim blasphemy laws; starting at the WH … c’mon!! Let’s call them on it and be ourselves instead of Dhimmies!!! We start with throwing out every follower of Islam advising, subverting or otherwise infiltrating our State Dept. and our WH; or does the oath of office mean NOTHING to us????!!!!!
And a point I forgot to emphasize is that one of the reasons that they are rioting is because they’ve been taught all their lives that the infidel is trying to destroy Islam (and hates God, even), so whenever we do anything that can be fit into that mold, look out.
And THAT is why it is a good idea to say “that’s not our purpose at all” and say it believably. Yes the Muslim viewpoint is insane, so that’s why we have to bring them back to reality instead of doing anything that plays into their delusions.
But, you see, no one’s trying to talk them out of their tree. Our leaders and opinion-makers are trying to make them comfortable in their tree. The monotonous, incessant messages of the bien-pensants is that the tree is an exotic but acceptable cultural given to which WE must acclimatize.
And the burden is emphatically on THEM to overcome their childish rage at the sane people down below, their unmitigated betters in every arena. Not on us to send up lemonade. If they cannot contain their homicidal umbrage at not being catered to, let them pay the price, and pay it heavily, by God.
“What else do you expect? Pre-medieval people who believe they are called by God to reduce the rest of the world to their own state of misery are going to kill people when you insult them. That’s how they roll.”
And your point is? This is what they do best and that is who they are, at least most of them.
I’m always amused by those liberals who say, “Well, they are not all like that. There have been ‘some’ muslims who denounce these acts of violence.” Sure, well I don’t hear of any and the mainstream media, people who have wet dreams about helping those “poor” muslims, don’t seem to be broadcasting any of them. It doesn’t really help us these days if one or two imams around the world speak in their hidden mosques and say that rioting isn’t right, that killing isn’t right, that burning flags isn’t right. Nope, sorry, a few good apples in a rotton basket doesn’t quite cut it for me. We need massive demonstrations in places like Europe, the Middle East, and the United States by muslims condemning this sort of behavior. If we don’t get that, if we don’t see that, then in our media age it’s not really happening. So unless we get some major-league help from muslims calling for the end to violence, the silent majority is just as guilty and is just as much to blame as the people who ARE rioting. In silence there is consent, and from what I’m seeing, there is a whole lot of consent going on.
If technologically advanced aliens came to Spain during that 15th century inquisition nobody expects and started burning bibles on their alien base, would there have been riots? Would aliens have been killed in the streets? These wouldn’t be very smart aliens, since having hung around the neighborhood for years, perhaps they should have caught on that burning bibles in 15th century Spain was probably a bad idea.
I rather expect really really smart technologically advanced aliens would have given every peasant a solar powered TV set and let them slowly undergo the cultural deprogramming modern Christians have been subject to for the last 40 years. Then, like the “peaceful” Christians here, they wouldn’t even be able to get up enough gumption to vote politicians out of office who approve grants for artists to smear excrement on their religious symbols and appoint judges who order the removal of the 10 commandments from every building which got more than 20 bucks in government funding.
Culture war won, problem solved.
I received the following in an email a few days ago and think it relevant to this conversation:
Auschwitz -
The following is a copy of an article written by Spanish writer Sebastian Vilar Rodriguez and published in a Spanish newspaper on Jan. 15, 2008. It doesn’t take much imagination to extrapolate the message to the rest of Europe – and possibly to the rest of the world.
REMEMBER AS YOU READ — IT WAS IN A SPANISH PAPER
Date: Tue. 15 January 2008
ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ
By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez
I walked down the street in Barcelona , and suddenly discovered a terrible truth – Europe died in Auschwitz … We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world.
The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned.
And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.
They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime.
Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.
And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition.
We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs.
What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe
The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000; that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world’s population. They have received the following NobelPrizes:
Literature:
1988 – Najib Mahfooz
Peace:
1978 – Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1990 – Elias James Corey
1994 – Yaser Arafat:
1999 – Ahmed Zewai
Economics:
(zero)
Physics:
(zero)
Medicine:
1960 – Peter Brian Medawar
1998 – Ferid Mourad
TOTAL: 7 SEVEN
The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is FOURTEEN MILLION or about 0.02% of the world’s population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:
Literature:
1910 – Paul Heyse
1927 – Henri Bergson
1958 – Boris Pasternak
1966 – Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 – Nelly Sachs
1976 – Saul Bellow
1978 – Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 – Elias Canetti
1987 – Joseph Brodsky
1991 – Nadine Gordimer World
Peace:
1911 – Alfred Fried
1911 – Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 – Rene Cassin
1973 – Henry Kissinger
1978 – Menachem Begin
1986 – Elie Wiesel
1994 – Shimon Peres
1994 – Yitzhak Rabin
Physics:
1905 – Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 – Henri Moissan
1907 – Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 – Gabriel Lippmann
1910 – Otto Wallach
1915 – Richard Willstaetter
1918 – Fritz Haber
1921 – Albert Einstein
1922 – Niels Bohr
1925 – James Franck
1925 – Gustav Hertz
1943 – Gustav Stern
1943 – George Charles de Hevesy
1944 – Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 – Felix Bloch
1954 – Max Born
1958 – Igor Tamm
1959 – Emilio Segre
1960 – Donald A. Glaser
1961 – Robert Hofstadter
1961 – Melvin Calvin
1962 – Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 – Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 – Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 – Julian Schwinger
1969 – Murray Gell-Mann
1971 – Dennis Gabor
1972 – William Howard Stein
1973 – Brian David Josephson
1975 – Benjamin Mottleson
1976 – Burton Richter
1977 – Ilya Prigogine
1978 – Arno Allan Penzias
1978 – Peter L Kapitza
1979 – Stephen Weinberg
1979 – Sheldon Glashow
1979 – Herbert Charles Brown
1980 – Paul Berg
1980 – Walter Gilbert
1981 – Roald Hoffmann
1982 – Aaron Klug
1985 – Albert A. Hauptman
1985 – Jerome Karle
1986 – Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 – Robert Huber
1988 – Leon Lederman
1988 – Melvin Schwartz
1988 – Jack Steinberger
1989 – Sidney Altman
1990 – Jerome Friedman
1992 – Rudolph Marcus
1995 – Martin Perl
2000 – Alan J. Heeger
Economics:
1970 – Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 – Simon Kuznets
1972 – Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 – Leonid Kantorovich
1976 – Milton Friedman
1978 – Herbert A. Simon
1980 – Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 – Franco Modigliani
1987 – Robert M. Solow
1990 – Harry Markowitz
1990 – Merton Miller
1992 – Gary Becker
1993 – Robert Fogel
Medicine:
1908 – Elie Metchnikoff
1908 – Paul Erlich
1914 – Robert Barany
1922 – Otto Meyerhof
1930 – Karl Landsteiner
1931 – Otto Warburg
1936 – Otto Loewi
1944 – Joseph Erlanger
1944 – Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 – Ernst Boris Chain
1946 – Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 – Tadeus Reichstein
1952 – Selman Abraham Waksman
1953 – Hans Krebs
1953 – Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 – Joshua Lederberg
1959 – Arthur Kornberg
1964 – Konrad Bloch
1965 – Francois Jacob
1965 – Andre Lwoff
1967 – George Wald
1968 – Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 – Salvador Luria
1970 – Julius Axelrod
1970 – Sir Bernard Katz
1972 – Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 – Howard Martin Temin
1976 – Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 – Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 – Daniel Nathans
1980 – Baruj Benacerraf
1984 – Cesar Milstein
1985 – Michael Stuart Brown
1985 – Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 – Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 – Gertrude Elion
1989 – Harold Varmus
1991 – Erwin Neher
1991 – Bert Sakmann
1993 – Richard J. Roberts
1993 – Phillip Sharp
1994 – Alfred Gilman
1995 – Edward B. Lewis
1996- Lu RoseIacovino
TOTAL: 129
The Jews are NOT promoting brain-washing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non-Muslims. The Jews don’t hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants. There is NOT one single Jew who has destroyed a church. There is NOT a single Jew who protests by killing people.
The Jews don’t traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.
Perhaps the world’s Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.
Muslims must ask ‘what can they do for humankind’ before they demand that humankind respects them.
Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel ‘s part, the following two sentences really say it all:
“If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel .” Benjamin Netanyahu
General Eisenhower warned us it is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.
He did this because he said in words to this effect:
‘Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses – because somewhere down the road of history some b- – - – - – will get up and say this never happened’
Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it ‘offends’ the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving in to it.
It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the, 6 million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians, and 1,900 Catholic priests who were ‘murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on and humiliated’ while the German people looked the other way.
Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be ‘a myth,’ it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.
This e-mail is intended to reach 400 million people. Be a link in the memorial chain and help distribute this around the world.
How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center ‘NEVER HAPPENED’ because it offends some Muslim in the United States ? Do not just delete this message; it will take only a minute to pass this along.
I’m pretty familiar with Spanish papers. Do you know which one published the article? Also, I wasn’t quite sure where the article ended. Was it right before the email distribution note?
I thought Paul Krugman was Jewish, but he’s not on the list.
The article predates Krugman’s Nobel Prize.
When the west in their haste and foolishness tossed the Lord out of their communities, the door was opened for evil to replace it. So it has.
The world now suffers under massive delusion. We can see it everywhere in the profoundly dumb comprehensions that continue to be fostered and imposed.
However, the Lord is not confused. He never will be confused. Therefore Islam has no future. None at all.
Josh, whether the riots were organized by Karzai or not, makes no difference in the long run.
Obama’s performance during this crisis has been utterly craven and limp-wristed, attempting to appease our enemies, while refusing to condemn the murder of our soldiers, or even get them out of there. Newt’s not president. He’s not the guy in charge, here. Obama is. He’s not doing a real good job.
Nice attempt at changing the goalposts, though.
As for bringing Islam back to reality—Um, since when did that become our job? Isn’t it Islam’s responsibility to teach its people not to riot, and murder whenever their feelings are hurt? I mean we keep hearing about how it’s such a wonderful, peaceable religion, and it’s only a few bad apples who are radicals, all the other Moslems are just swell folks, who want peace and harmony and happy rainbows!
I know, I know! Let’s have Hillary dress up in a sparkly pink Glinda the Good dress and wave her magic wand, while chanting, “REALITY CAN BE FUN!” Or, maybe Obama can sing to them.
/Sarc. off.
As for saying, oh, gosh wow, jeekers, honest to goshers, we didn’t mean to burn your poor, helpless Korans—haven’t we already said that, as believably as we can? Considering all the money, and blood, we’ve spent on that country (which sheltered bin Ladin, who attacked us on 9/11, lest we forget that), shouldn’t they be apologizing to us?
And do you realize believe this is just about a bunch of Korans?
And, Josh? Simply by not being Moslems, we fit into the mold of 1. Hating God, and 2. Being against Islam.
And, really, it’s not about the Korans.
It’s about showing us their power.
I would think that, really, it isn’t about us.
It’s the Islamists USING the situation to gain more power, to get some Afghanis angry and scare the rest.
Since 911, I’ve figured out that the essence of Islam and its most vociferous proponents is manipulation.
Islamists have really trashed Islam in the eyes of the world.
I argued that it was this very Jewish intransigence, later refined by Jesus, that ultimately gave rise to our western conviction that the religious conscience of man is sacred and deserves protection from rulers of all stripes.
We better stand up to these morons in renewed “intransigence” or everything humankind has allegedly become (and that’s debatable) is toast.
It is ironic how God uses pain and suffering to bring people to their senses. It sure is taking a long time and much pain to work but eventually the West either wakes up or we all die. Slowly.
Muslims are violent, intolerant and treat women badly because they are told to act like their founder, the Warlord Muhammad who was violent, intolerant, and treated women badly! We in the West must stand up for our culture and values.
If they think burning a few of their precious books is bad they should see what I do with them. I’ve got this old vacation cabin with an honest to god outhouse. I’ve got a couple of those books nailed to the wall just in case I run out of Charmin.
Much better paper quality than a Sear and Roebuck catalog.
Yeah – it isn’t you islam…
Reminded me of a hilarious story in the Daily Rash last year about an Afghan man who postponed stoning his wife so he could avenge the burning of a Koran. http://www.thedailyrash.com/afghan-man-reschedules-stoning-his-wife-to-avenge-florida-koran-burning
You know, the people of Islam always talk about being one people. Ok fine, give them one single vote in the UN.
If they cherish the quran so much then when they write in it we should call them out for the offense to their book. We should have Karzi announce the offense, punish the ones that wrote in it, and have a friendly cleric depose of the book properly
I say cut our losses: pull ALL our personnel out of Afghanistan ASAP, arm & supply the non-Pashtun warlords in the North and West, accept that the Pashtun-dominated South and East will fall to the Taliban. Then we use airpower–indefinitely–to ensure that the Taliban can never build a state in their half of the country.
a very nice “You’re Welcome!” in reply to their “Thank You”!!
In my world, a few burned korans are not worth the life of even one American soldier. An act deemed offensive to someone’s religion certainly does not equal a human life. They murder because life has no value to them. At least an infidel’s life has no value to them. And that highlights how anti-human islam is. It’s a vile ideology that should be ridiculed and scoffed at and condemned and ultimately eliminated from the face of the earth.
Get us OUT of the middle east except for protecting Israel NOW !
LOL! This is great and spot on! What else do you expect? Pre-medieval people who believe they are called by God to reduce the rest of the world to their own state of misery are going to kill people when you insult them. That’s how they roll.
Get our troops out of Afghanistan now. Get out of the Middle East except to help Israel. The Taliban rules the east and the Muslim Brotherhood, the west (now that Obama has helped install them in Egypt and Libya). These people are beyond barbarian and do not want to change. They are too wedded to their ideology to change, us being nice-nice to them will not change them. When polled in Egypt 85% wanted a more islamist government. Cut our losses and bid them adieu. Block their entering the U.S. We need to make it clear to the ones here that they live under OUR laws and give them the option to leave.
The biggest problem is our current and recent Army and Marine generals who are an absolute disgrace. They have put the lives and limps of their own troops as inferior to mulsim lives and even muslim “sensitivities”. All those who have been pushing this Islamic Nation Building, with it’s Petraeus winning Islamic Hearts-and-Minds, anti-American stupidity, have blood on their hands, as all this is the direct result. THE DIRECT RESULT! No one can logically, or morally, complain about symptoms from a disease that they have been promoting.
Let those who for too long a time have been dhimma, now become knights. Let those who have been fighting in service of Mohammedans against their own Christian brothers and sisters and their own Jewish cousins now fight in a proper way against all the followers of the misogynist pedophile demon. Let those who have been wearing themselves out in both body and soul in vain attempt to win the dark hearts of the Mohammedans now labor for glorious honor against them. Behold! On the one side will be the completely destroyed Mohammedans, on the other the fierce and righteous protectors of truth and humanity. On the one side will be the destroyed enemies of the Lord, on the other, his friends who will shout at all the Mohammednas as they destroy them, “It is the will of God! It is the will of God!”
In Muslim eyes the Koran is the actual and UNALTERABLE word of their God so no chance of reformation there then . We must also presume then on reading said Koran that their God is a repetitive, boring, sadistic, illogical, self contradictory, misogynistic,Arab supremacist who approves of slavery and who has absolutely no idea of the geographical nature of the planet he supposedly created. Just look at the Islamic prayer and fasting rules all timed by the rising and setting of the sun and which all work very well in the mid eastern desert where they were INVENTED but which fail pathetically and comprehensively as you get closer to each Pole.
The sad and funny part is, it’s so d*mn easy to show that precious Prophet is almost entirely fictional, and that the so-called Quran is merely a pile of his tall tales and rumours carelessly lumped together 100 years after this minor Meccan criminal lived. Hadith and Sunna were just more BS stories to flesh out the fantasy.
Mock them, criticize them, rub their d*mn noses in it til they explode.
I’ve lived with them, a bit. I know. Millions of them dream of the unexpected pamphlet campaign, so they can throw this vicious stupidity back in the faces of the ignorant perverts who rule them.
Just too d*mn bad the Left cultivates them as mercenaries, as a counter to the free peoples of the West.
It is laughable to think the Party- in the US or the EU- that brought Khomeini to power and succored Arafat gives the slightest d*mn about ‘the general welfare’.
AK – The only real question is: Who are we?
Petulant beneficiaries of enormous sacrifice.
Having recently reread The Mote in God’s Eye, I think Niven and Pournelle offer a sane approach. As with the Moties who are far too dangerous to allow out of their system, we leave a strong force at the “Crazy Eddie Point” and then nobody gets in nobody gets out until they learn how to play nice with others.
The reason the West is doing these silly things is simply to create the preconditions for the war we want to fight, while discrediting the Left enablers.
The West does not want peace with Islam, but rather see the best end is a war to the death, and they only way to get that is to let Muslims be Muslims.
Moderate Islam is a trope like ‘Laughing Hyena’.
There is only one answer for the Islaminization of America, and it’s not what most people think it is. Listen to “The BIBLICAL Answer to the Islaminization of America” at http://www.missiontoisrael.org/tapelist.php#T871, followed by “The BIBLICAL Answer to the Mosque at Ground Zero” at http://www.missiontoisrael.org/tapelist.php#T872.
Just one more reason why all religion is the bane of civilization.
If you think all religions are the same, then you prove your ignorance.
Klavan, HOW DARE YOU BE SOOOOO INTOLERANT?!? OFF WIT YER HEAD!!!! Oh but not in the name of Islam. Oh, no, no, no. Just for being culturally insensitive to the clearly superior culture of Islam, and too for daring to suggest that America MIGHT have a culture of its own — uh, liberty or some such nonsense. It is to laugh!
Quoting from the author
“In fact, Jews, singly and en masse, are now among the greatest contributors to the good of mankind the world has ever known,”
The article is about glorifying western civilization in the face of the “barbaric Islam” referring to Muslim reaction against burning their holly book by American occupation soldiers. Argument about this civilization superiority needs to be discussed but not in this context. What surprises me is that why an article about western civilization “led by American saviors” started by taking about Jews. “Manifesting them as the greatest contributors of good to mankind” implies that the author excludes Palestinians from that mankind.
Yet if the author agrees that the Palestinians are part of the mankind, then he absolutely needed to be discussed about the essence of “good” and “bad.”
For example:
is it good or bad that Israeli – Jewish occupation to Palestine is the last occupation in the history?
Is it good or bad that Israeli occupation subjects more than 4 million Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza to an apartheid system of rule?
Demolishing houses and properties, confiscating lands and daily killings, where is located in good – bad checkbox.
Biting of Palestinian land by the segregation wall, confiscation of land in behalf of religious Jewish settlers are all good for mankind.
More than 6 millions of Palestinians in the exile since 1948, is indeed part of the good act.
However, the list of good and bad is too long and by the way started by Balfour declaration tell the moment these words are written.
The only Palestinians are the Jews. “Palestinian” has been synonymous with “Jew,” and “Palestine” with “land of the Jews” (or “the Holy Land,” since Jesus was a Jew), since the Roman Emperor Hadrian changed the name of Judea to “Palestina” in 135 A.D., after having defeated the last Jewish rebellion under Bar Kochba. (He also outlawed Judaism and changed the name of Jerusalem to “Aelia Capitolina,” “Aelius being his gens name.) That is why Great Britain was given the “Palestine Mandate” after World War I to be the “homeland of the Jews.”
Calling Arabs “Palestinians” is history rewrite, the effect of the invention of the “Palestine Liberation Organization” (P.L.O.) by Egypt under Nasser and the Soviet Union, haters of Jews, in Cairo in 1964. These Arabs deserve nothing.
There is no way to change the past. Unfortunately, the Middle Eastern cultures still live very much in the past. Their misunderstanding and hatred of Western culture is bred mainly from fear. Western culture is by no means perfect and there are always people in every culture who are an embarrassment to that culture. After all, people are people. We have our better qualities and our warts. However, in Western culture we try to be more tolerant (for the most part) and learn about other cultures. When the Bible is burned, we are insensed, but we don’t riot in the streets and kill people over it. When a woman is raped in Western culture, we don’t kill the victimized woman. We don’t even kill the rapist. Why then, is it okay for people in Middle Eastern cultures and religions to take the lives of other humans for such acts?
I believe that it is okay in their culture because their religion teaches them to respond with violence rather than with reason. Judaism and Christianity strive to live peacefully with other cultures. It wasn’t always so, but, we cannot change the past. By being the leavening in the bread of the world’s cultures rather than keeping ourselves separate from them, we have been able to overcome much of our fear of other cultures and much of the perceived harms they might impose on our own culture. We have also been overly tolerant and have allowed our own culture to break down in some very foundational areas. Many times we look the other way when we should stand firmly against some actions.
Truly fearsome outcomes occur when those who are driven by the need for power and control use such things a burning a Koran to whip the people into a frenzy and light the fires of hatred, vengeance, and physical violence against others. That is not the purpose of any religion, or shouldn’t be. Religion of any kind should strive to uplift the soul and enlighten the mind to help mankind rise and become more like the Being in whom those believers have faith and trust.
While Western culture and its major religions have not always displayed the virtues they have claimed to believe in, they have brought more freedom and a higher standard of living to the entire world than has any Middle Eastern religion. There was a time when those cultures were giving the world more knowledge and more art than any other, but it didn’t last and they fell into a kind of darkness. It was at that point that Christianity took the ball and ran with it, so to speak. We have shared our knowledge and our advances with all the world. I do not feel we need to continually apologize for mistakes, real or imagined, when we keep trying to do better. Others are welcome to join us, but not forced to do so. By the same token, no other faith or culture has the right to force us to bend to its will, especially under threat of death.
Nizam, is it good or bad that Palestians practice the quaint custom of “suicide bombing”, wherein they strap explosives onto themselves, and go into areas where they detonate, killing as many civilians: women, children, old people, etc., as they can?
Sometimes, the Palestinians encourage their own children to do this.
Is it good or bad that Palestinians danced for joy, on 9/11, when 3,000 Americans were murdered?
Is it good or bad that Palestinians have had billions in foreign aid given them, which apparently accomplished nothing except making Yassir Arafat one of the richest men in the world?
Is it good or bad that the Palestinians have instituted Shari’a law, are driving out Christians and practice honor killings?
In a conflict, it’s always better to support the civilized, over the barbarians.
I’m glad you brought up that old trope about Muslims inventing coffee. They didn’t. Muslims got it from Ethiopia, which was then almost totally Christian (before some lowland Ethiopian tribes converted to Islam to avoid enslavement by Arabs, which seems like an effective way to spread a religion if you’re not concerned with morality). But Christians didn’t invent it either. It was probably consumed back in the days of tribal, hunter gatherer paganism.
Israel was not a backward nation. Just a small nation.
and
The Romans wanted to desecrate the Temple, add statues of the Emperor to worship…not burn some holy book.
Totally bad analogy.
Just before World War I, there were a number of terrorist attacks against the United States and it’s interests by, you guessed it, Muslim extremists.
So General Pershing captured 50 of the terrorists and had them tied to posts execution style. He then had his men bring in two pigs and slaughter them in front of the, now horrified, terrorists.
The soldiers then soaked their bullets in pigs blood, and proceeded to execute 49 of the terrorists by firing squad.
The soldiers then dug a big hole, dumped in the terrorist’s bodies and covered them in pig blood, entrails, etc.
They let the 50th man go. And for about the next 42 years, there was not a single attack by a muslim fanatic anywhere in the world.
That’s how you handle Muslims…
That story is likely not true. It’s likely an urban legend.
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_black_jack_pershing.htm
The Taliban destroyed the unique historic 6th-century Buddhist statues of Bamiyan. The world was remarkably silent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan
PAKISTANIS ROUTINELY THROW AWAY KORANS INTO OPEN SEWER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69VIER7nzz8&list=PLBA130227E5B0814A&index=2&feature=plpp_video
How dare Obama offer apologies to any muslim anywhere for ‘insulting their religious sensitivities’ when they themselves are caught having routinely thrown their own Korans into a filthy open sewage-filled canal? (not that they don’t actually belong there, mind you….)
I am doubly amazed that the West remains totally unaware of this “sacrilege” and why it isn’t this common knowledge in homes across America and the West?
PAthea
What about Canaanites the ancient ancestors of the Arab Palestinians who lived in Palestine since roughly 3000 bc. Then they established a great civilization and built a flourished city – states like shkem (Nablus) Yebus (Jerusalem), and Jericho. One main manifestation of the Canaanite civilization was of course the written alphapet, which lately became the base of the modern Latin alphabet (alpha, beta, gama). The Semite Aramaic language is the language of Palestine, adopted by all Palestinian population including Jews, who spoke Aramaic longer time than they spoke Hebrew.
Jews influx to Palestine was 1200 BC, they entered the country and became part of the population, they were assimilated to the dominant Canaanite culture. Thus, ancient Jews are Palestinian indeed, but not the European, and African Jews. Jews are not a nation, but a religion. It is Just secular Zionism who converted nationalism to religion. If Jews a race there is no races at all. Jews can be a nation, bt from Anderson view: constructed not intrinsic nation.
We Palestinians, recognize ancient Jews as Palestinians and we recognize Jesus Christ as a Palestinian Jewish. But we don’t recognize the Jews of Yiddish as Palestinians …sorry they cannot be except European settlers.
The superiority of religion
Is it racism to suppose that Christianity and Judaism can produce civilization but not Islam? Or is it egoism. I am trying to convince myself by this as a fact because simple western civilization is based on Christian-ism and to a distant Judaism.
However, I found my self again in a confusion because simply western civilization is deep rooted in the history. What about ancient religions in Greece and Europe? From another hand religions are spread all over the world but the world it self is culturally divided north and south of the planet. Hence religion is not the factor. It seems to me that religion is subjected to culture. There are differences between eastern Jews and western Jews, the western Jews in Israel (the Ashkenazi) consider oriental Jews (Sephardim) as backward. Same is talked about Christianity. Eastern Christians are different civilization than western Christians. The western ego (Jews and Christian have related religions to themselves. I was wondering why Jesus Christ appears blond in the western fiction? Isn’t he logically a wheaten skin Palestinian with brown eyes?
Back to religions and civilizations? What civilization has brought medieval Christianity to Europe? What civilization brought the very Jewish Ghetto except the so called anti-Semitism? On the contrary what about medieval Islam? Who can deny the contribution of Islam in the circulation of civilization during medieval ages?
Lets forget about history, lets talk about now? How can we compare between Muslim turkey and Christian south Sudan? Moslem Malaysia or African backward Christian majority countries?
I liked the answer of this German Muslim scholar when he was asked about terrorism and Islam : He said : Who started the first world war ? Muslims ? Who started the second world war ? Muslims ? Who killed about 20 millions of Aborigines in Australia ? Muslims ?? Who sent the nuclear bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ? Muslims ?? Who killed more than 100 millions of Indians in North America ? Muslims ?? Who killed more than 50 millions of Indians in south America ? Muslims ?? Who took about 180 millions of African people as slaves and 88% of them died and was thrown in Atlantic ocean ? Muslims ?? No , They weren’t Muslims!!! First of all, You have to define terrorism properly… If a non-Muslim do something bad..it is crime. But if a Muslim commit same..he is terrorist… So first remove this double standard…then come to the point!!! , . . . . .
Some muslim countries have embraced the twentieth and twenty first centuries — Khazakstan, Malaysia come to mind. R. Pahlavi in 1930′s Iran banned the Hijab and his son let women in the government and the military.
Nizam seems to have learned nothing but dishonest and paranoid talking points.