Very Little to Debate at ‘Human Rights in Islam’ Discussion
It is impossible for me to provide a complete account of the debate on “Human Rights in Islam: Just or Unjust?” that was held under the auspices of IslamNet, Norway’s largest Islamic organization, on November 7, 2011. The “ideas” that were presented were utterly lacking in logic or intelligence, and the whole thing raced by very fast. It was almost impossible to keep up with it all: claims were made at a tempo out of another world, and were absolutely without substance. It was far more a revival meeting than a debate.
They delightedly applauded the chopping off of hands and feet. And they didn’t raise an eyebrow when executions committed by family agreement were defended as a reasonable ”human right in Islam.”
You would be forgiven for thinking that we were in deepest Saudi Arabia, or in a long-ago century. Far from it. We were in an auditorium at Oslo University College, where our future was being hatched onstage. The place was packed, and the great majority of the young students were wearing clothes that identifed themselves as followers of the Prophet.
The website Fritanke.no reported prior to the “debate” that the participants were sharia expert Fadel Soliman, Lars Gule, and myself, and that Gule would withdraw from the event if IslamNet separated the audience members by sex. But they did. The young women used one entrance to the auditorium, the young men another. The auditorium consisted of four sitting areas. The areas in the back were entirely separated by sex, while one of the areas in the middle contained members of both sexes — though not in the same rows. The sexual separation “just happened — entirely naturally.”
To walk into the Oslo University hall that night was like entering another world — or a past era. The overwhelming majority of the young women had dolled themselves up in full-length hijab; several were in niqab. A few were Norwegian converts. Many of the young men, including Norwegian converts, were strongly inspired in their attire by the clothing styles prevalent on the Arabian peninsula in the time of Muhammed. Some will maintain that superficial appearances don´t count. But that’s not the whole truth. I was not dismayed that the audience applauded when Soliman explained why robbery — but not fraud — should be punished by chopping off limbs. I noticed that it wasn’t just the heavily covered women and uniformed men who clapped; so did the young women without hijab. That was a little surprising. Nor did anyone protest. This is perhaps surprising, but to stand up to the intense pressure for conformity in this community takes guts. And if there was anybody with guts in the Muslim audience that night, we will never know.
The atmosphere was intense. Every single time the name of the Prophet Muhammed was mentioned, mumbled words of blessing echoed loudly through the auditorium. Even a Norwegian woman in Western clothing joined in. This was in sync with the audience’s sentiment about human rights in Islam, which was perhaps best formulated by a male Norwegian convert with a long beard, a shawl over his head, a white robe, and baggy pants. The UN’s notion of human rights, he insisted, has failed. Even criminals are given human rights! (Here he began to tote up all the benefits accorded inmates in Norwegian prisons.) The answer, of course, is Islam: cutting off limbs. Only in this way can the world be liberated from crime. Islam is the answer to humanity’s challenges.
Or, as someone else in the audience put it: Our society has hit bottom because we haven’t implemented sharia.
Gule spoke up several times about uncivilized barbarism — yes, his words hit hard — but I would have trouble believing that they reached a single student. Nor was there any hint of protest when Soliman explained Islam’s view of execution: in cases of murder, it is up to the victim’s family to negotiate with the murderer’s family. No trial, then. Instead, do what the tribes on the Arabian peninsula did 1400 years ago: if the victim’s family insists on execution, then out comes the sword. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Simple and fair Islamic logic, according to Soliman. I never did get an answer when I asked what exactly counts as “spreading mischief in the land,” which, according to a verse of the Koran that Solimon himself quoted, can be punished with death. Does this apply to blasphemy, for example? Does it apply to any activity that can be characterized as undermining Islam?
I gather that in Soliman and IslamNet’s dream world — a global caliphate — the answer to this last question is yes.
The mood grew angry and explicitly hostile when the subject of satire — an exceedingly delicate matter in Islam — came up. It was Soliman himself who brought up the “hatred” that religious satire engenders. Soliman illustrated this “hatred” with cartoons from my website, rights.no. The students’ reactions showed very clearly that satire plus Islam and Muhammed can be a deadly cocktail.
Thank you for this interesting account. I fear that the differences between us and the Islamists are so great that it is impossible to communicate.
For example, the kidnappers of Galit Shalit had several interviews where they bragged about how well they treated him during the 5 year incarceration. “See how merciful is Islam” they boasted. They believed what they were saying. They didn’t understand that 5 years in a dungeon, in solitary confinement, with no contact with the Red Cross or family was torture.
How can you possibly talk to such people?
My Grand-Daddy told me when I was young ” If you let pigs in the house pretty soon you are gonna be stomping around in pigshit.”
Congratulations Norway.
Well said. Mr. Storhaug and those like him are the heroes of our time. Someone needs to stand up to these Islamist Thugs. The only solution, other than shaming them into SUBMISSION, is all out war with them. I say “Humiliate them on the World Wide stage until their heads explode.” The followers of Islam are a disgrace to humanity and should be dealt with as such.
I certainly agree. Ms Storhaug is certainly a great heroine of our time.
Thank you JohannaV…. for correcting my gender faux pas.
Thank you for your courage in facing down this kind of a crowd. Please stay safe. We need sane voices in the world.
Well, Norway has an established church with no souls to cure or beliefs to share. They and the rest of society are willing to make common cause with believers because of the echoes of past belief. Perhaps they envy Islam’s certainty if not content.
Norway could be considered the least Christian nation in Europe today. Their elites’ nihilism and hatred of Christianity has to be seen to be believed.
It is apparently impossible for Liberals (who in classical Liberalism defended the individual)to comprehend that not everyone has the same worldview as the West. Liberals bend themselves into pretzels trying to explain away things like the above.
Islam: The religion of perpetual outrage
We should stop describing sharia as “law” and replace it with “utterly preposterous rules and restrictions”.
Rules and restrictions to be applied by a small elite group of self-described “religious leaders” at their own whim and discretion.
The cutting off of limbs, which you mention several times, is a good example, given that well connected offenders in the Muslim world can pay off the right people and avoid that horror, or appoint someone to stand in for them, as happened in arenas in Afghanistan when the Taliban held sway.
…the intense pressure for conformity in this community
The people you describe in that auditorium, the followers of the pedophile marauder, are the naive and brain dead counterparts of “occupiers” elsewhere.
As Ayatollah Khomeini himself put it, “There is no fun in Islam.”
Proof of the insanity: Ayatollah Khomeini’s Little Green Book
But to experience at close quarters, in the same room, face to face, the reactions of young Islamists when their religion is mocked is an entirely different experience than to witness these reactions in the media.
I had such an experience in a public setting, with 2 young Islamists passing out Korans to passersby and pointing out all the sweet and gentle passages.
I mentioned the differences between the passages Mohammed “received” at Mecca versus the later ones at Medina, the bellicosity of Sura 9, for example, which is claimed to be the last one.
I will never forget the look of hatred on their faces, one of the two in particular, at issuing such a challenge to their Islamic propaganda machine.
To say these people have no sense of humor or the least desire for honest and open debate would be a gross understatement.
Mullah Krekar has promised that Islamists in general will breed like mosquitoes and overwhelm your numbers in due time.
I am saddened that the people who conquered England and ruled there for CENTURIES, my forbears, are being cowed by political correctness to permit this primitive and evil religion in their midst.
Lovely that they saw fit not to allow any outside observer to make recordings of any kind.
Thank you for not only attending and speaking but sharing your experience. The answer to curb this radicalism is to let their true sentiments shine in full daylight.
The solution to this problem is the complete discrediting of socialism. The self-loathing of Western political elites is the direct result of nearly a century of unrelenting attacks on Western history, Western culture, Western institutions, and Western families. Even our society’s past accomplishments are often belittled. Norway’s elites do not defend their country because they believe that their society is not worth defending.
Mark Razak said “Norway’s elites do not defend their country because they believe that their society is not worth defending.” This is true for all elites in every contemporary society. They take their own societies for granted. It is also a luxury for them to tolerate stone-age minded creatures who are rarities in their own societies. For them it is as though they are building zoos in their cities! So it may be fun for a while. But when those creatures somehow get hold of political power it is first the tolerant elites who go under! Elites learn this after it is too late. Also, were it not for the Middle East oil that muslims are sitting over, I wonder if they would be treated with such tolerance in countries like Norway.
you people keep using that stupid ‘Islamist’ designation..
would you really designate a difference between a ‘moderate’ nazi and an ‘extremist’ nazi?
Keep drinking the other green kool-aid dunderheads..
The Islamists in the Oslo University audience believe that Westerners will eventually see the superiority of Islam and convert. But if enough of any western society doesn’t convert—enough to force it on the holdouts—they also have perfect faith that somehow western politicians will force Islam on their populations, starting in grade school. One has to believe that even Europeans are growing tired of these people. Much of the Islamists’ militancy outside of its home countries is based on the obvious fact that Europeans, among others, have little interest in this religion; this is very hurtful to Muslims and their inclination is to strike back at this disinterested disrespect using rhetorical means for the most part. Sooner or later, though, the stunning truth will penetrate that Islam’s numbers can only grow through births and immigration, not through coversions, for the simple reason that Islam is not held in high regard by the rest of the world.
I like this forum because of posts like thisvery much appreciated specifically at what i will be aiming to do.
Does any person have any further reading? Where’s a good option to start out here on this website?
https://sites.google.com/site/workwearweb2webx/
Your country is already done for, GOODBYE.
With love, from ISRAEL
This just in: Vikings stormed the moon god worshiping meeting. Butchered all the male moon god worshipers, and enslaved the females.
The party afterwards was until 0400hrs. Only Nationalists were allowed.
so then my question is why do we tolerate islam anywhere? I want an answer. we cannot keep up this idiotic nonsense and excuse “all muslims are not like this” crap. tese are not a few nobody backwoods people saying this stuff. these are mainstream muslims, powerful leaders religious and political with millions of followers, respected intellectualls teaching thousands of children. Islam knows NO bounds when it comes to getting what they want. they will lie, cheat, steal, rape, kill and more to reach thewir end goals. it is a vile religion not worthy of respect or reverence at all. the only people who give it such outside of islam are fools who are too scared to call it for what it is and then they chastise others who are brave enough to do so. are we to wait til they gain even more power and control our lives? why is it that we see the obvious signs of conquest and believe that if we are nice to our enemies who want nothing more than our death, they will see the light?! GOD wont save you, neither will the muslims see reason. we need to burn them out of existance. no piutty no remorse and no stopping. I challence anyone who disagrees with me to find another way. i challence anyone who wants to use false moral equivilance. Islam is a disease that must be destroyed its followers silenced and relegated to oblivion with other extinct animals. And for thoes who will ask “what makes you different from them then?”. the answer is this. my side wins freedom and prosperity, their side wins enslavement and death. any questions
We need to understand the difference between tolerance and carte blanche. The latter is what has been offered to islam. The former is what islam withholds from the rest of us. Islam is not a religion. That would separate it from some things. Islam is islam and, therefore, subsumes everything. That’s why “submission” is the key element. When you can put that in your pipe and smoke it, you’ll know what you’re dealing with and what to do about it.
thank you for this article, and as others have said, stay safe! these people kill indiscriminately.
when I was growing up, Norwegians and other Scandivanians were heroes in our house: they helped the Jews escape the Nazis. it is sad to think that this same country is now overrun by Muslims who will forever change it–and not for the better.
I’m so sorry for you and the other countries like Britain who are looking at the real possibility of a Muslim majority in the future. and I hope that we in America at least see the danger our own country is in and do something about it.
Here is a nice little site in English about Israel/Jew-hatred, Islamophilia (amongst the Marxist elites) and cowardice in Norway:
http://www.israelwhat.com
Islam is simply a primitive and barbaric political system dressed up as religion. It should be treated as such.
There will never be world peace until these barbarians are put asunder.
See http://www.newenglishreview.org/ article by Bynum, Why Islam Is Not a Religion. She argues that it is a political system, a dictatorship waiting to happen.
“There is no higher truth than Islam, no higher good than Islam and nothing more beautiful than Islam. Islam has replaced God, you see, and its ultimate goal is not to lead men to seek those higher values. Islam exists simply to perpetuate itself.”
Ms. Storhaug seems to have experienced that in action.
Ms. Storhaug should also visit a fundmentalist Christian event in the U.S., for instance, or a fundamentalist Jewish gathering anywhere, and compare her experiences with the one above; she might be surprised to find out that there is not much difference. Christian and Jewish critics of Islamic fundamentalism are blind to the same element among their own kind.