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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; The Anti-Jihadist</title>
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		<title>Islamic Persecution of Christians in Malaysia</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/the-anti-jihadist/islamic-persecution-of-christians-in-malaysia/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=islamic-persecution-of-christians-in-malaysia</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/the-anti-jihadist/islamic-persecution-of-christians-in-malaysia/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Jul 2011 04:35:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[The Anti-Jihadist]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=97656</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[And Muslim denial.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/pers.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-97690" title="pers" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/pers.jpg" alt="" width="448" height="303" /></a></p>
<p>Recently I had the unique opportunity to be <a href="../2011/06/22/islam%E2%80%99s-persecution-of-christians-in-malaysia/" target="_blank">interviewed by FrontPage Magazine&#8217;s editor Jamie Glazov</a>.  In case you haven&#8217;t yet read it, the main thrust of the interview was  regarding the ongoing persecution of minority non-Muslims in Malaysia at  the hands of the Muslim/Malay majority.  The lengthy track record of  substandard treatment and discrimination of non-Muslims in general and  Christians in particular should make it clear to everyone what&#8217;s going  on in Malaysia and why.</p>
<p>Most of the comments that I received at  FrontPage were supportive, but a few comments, apparently from Muslims,  were not so charitable. One in particular, from someone called  &#8216;Ibrahim&#8217;, stood out. Namely, his comment stood out in its  disingenuousness, its contempt of the truth, and flagrant twisting or  outright omission of the facts. Given these characteristics (as well as  the writer&#8217;s occasionally mangled syntax), this writer is almost certainly not only a  Muslim, but a fervent Muslim supporter of Malaysia&#8217;s Muslim-controlled  government. So in that regard, this comment stands as yet another useful  peek into the cognitive dissonance that critics of Islam have to contend with.</p>
<p>So  I&#8217;ve taken the liberty of reproducing most of &#8216;Ibrahim&#8217;s&#8217; comments here  and showing just how many lies and distortions a taqiyya-spewing Muslim  can pack into one (very long) paragraph. Any emphasis added is mine.</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8230;[The Anti  Jihadist] did not not show the numbers of Christians persecuted in  Malaysia and the years when they were persecuted.</p></blockquote>
<p>As if  my failing to produce a statistic or specific dates somehow makes  Islamic persecution in this country less real. Since Malaysia&#8217;s  pro-Islamic courts, police and government were all set up by Muslims,  for Muslims, and to ensure Islam remains dominant culturally, socially,  and politically in perpetuity, the number of Christians in Malaysia  subjected to Islamic degradation encompasses every Christian now on  Malaysian soil. According to the CIA Factbook, Christians make up 9.1%  of the population of Malaysia, which translates to approximately 2.5  million people. This number does not even begin to define the problem,  as other persecuted non-Muslim minorities (Hindus, Buddhists, etc.) are  left out. And most importantly, we can never know with certainty the  number of former Muslims in Malaysia, who are either thrown into  religious prisons for their trouble, or stay quiet out of fear.</p>
<blockquote><p>The  tragedy of May 13, 1969 was not between Muslims and non-Muslims and it  had nothing to do with any religion and its adherents. The tragedy took  place in the big cities like Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Penang between the  political supporters of Democratic Action Party and those who opposed  then when they celebrated their victory of the Malaysian general  elections took place in that month and year.</p></blockquote>
<p>Funny, I  don&#8217;t recall mentioning &#8216;May 13, 1969&#8242; in my interview, and yet this  &#8220;Muslim&#8221; commenter has gone out of his way to disavow Islam and Muslims  from this &#8216;tragedy&#8217;. So that should tell everybody that something here  smells quite fishy indeed.</p>
<p>The May 13th incident was not a  &#8220;tragedy&#8221; at all, like a tornado or a flood are tragedies. And the  general election going on at the time as &#8220;Ibrahim&#8221; states was merely a convenient pretext.  May 13th was in fact a crime of mass murder, a deliberate attack by Muslims  (Malays) against non-Muslims (mostly indigenous Chinese) who were a bit  too uppity and successful for their own good. We do know that the  loudspeakers of mosques were used by the rioters to incite the rioters  to carry on during those dark days, which suggests at least some level  of &#8216;official&#8217; Islamic involvement. No one, in fact, was ever charged or  prosecuted. Hundreds or perhaps thousands died, with the vast majority  of them being non-Muslims.  But thanks to the Malaysian government&#8217;s  cover-up and obfuscation of the facts for decades, the exact death toll  will probably never be known.</p>
<p>And this jihadist-inspired pogrom  of May 13th, 42 years ago, resulted in a handsome payoff to the Malays. It  was the instigator of the so-called &#8216;New Economic Policy&#8217;, which  amounts to nothing more than a thinly-disguised government-run <a href="http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/004-jizya.htm" target="_blank">jizya  scheme</a> that has profited Malays handsomely, all at the expense of non  Muslims. It continues in Malaysia to this day.</p>
<p>May 13th was not  an isolated case. Other countries in southeast Asia have also had &#8216;May  13&#8242; style incidents &#8212; including Indonesia in 1965-6 &amp; 1998 and  Singapore in 1964 &#8212; all when Muslims attacked non-Muslims (usually  Chinese) with great ferocity and enormous loss of life. At least 500,000  Chinese died in the 1965-66 Indonesian riots alone.</p>
<blockquote><p>The  judges in Malaysian courts are all Muslims are not the fact of Malaysian  judiciary system and practice. There are non-Muslim judges in Malaysian  courts too.</p></blockquote>
<p>The presence of a small number of non-Muslim judges in the Malaysian justice system does not in any way negate  the fact that the Malaysian justice system has long been co-opted to  serve the interests of Islam and Muslims. The Lina Joy case bears this  out, as I shall explain in a moment.</p>
<blockquote><p>The Malaysian  Christian convert Lina Joy was not detained or prisoned [sic]. She is  free to [sic] her application to delete the word Islam from her Malaysian  identity card, MyKad, was rejected by the courts in Malaysia, lower,  high, appealed [sic] and federal courts since Malaysian law provided for  Muslims to go to the Shariah Court to apply to change her religion from  Islam to other religion.</p></blockquote>
<p>Lina Joy, for those who are  unaware of the facts, is a Malay who had the misfortune to be &#8216;born&#8217; as a  Muslim.  Once she was an adult, she freely and of her own accord  embraced Christianity. However, she had the further misfortune, like all  other Malaysians, to be forced to have her religion listed on her  identity card  that all Malaysians, by law, must carry on their persons at all times.  Having one&#8217;s religion listed on an identity card already constitutes a  gross government intrusion into a citizen&#8217;s privacy, but it gets worse.  When Lina Joy went to the highest court in the country to try and remove  the word &#8216;Islam&#8217; from her ID card, <a href="http://www.infernalramblings.com/articles/Malaysian_Government/582/" target="_blank">the court ruled against her</a>.   The non Muslim judge was the sole dissenting voice on the panel. In the  aftermath Lina Joy dropped from public view altogether, apparently not  feeling safe from people like &#8216;Ibrahim&#8217;, and my understanding is that  she has since left the country for safer (non Muslim) shores.</p>
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		<title>The Muslim Wall of Silence</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/the-anti-jihadist/the-muslim-wall-of-silence/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-muslim-wall-of-silence</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Jun 2011 04:17:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[The Anti-Jihadist]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[australian embassy bombing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[australian embassy bombing in jakarta]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bali bombings 2002]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[body]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[count]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dr azahari husin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Husin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jw mariott hotel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[murder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[University]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=95957</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why aren't masses of Muslims shouting denunciations of Islamic terror from the rooftops?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/silence.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-95970" title="silence" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/silence.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="272" /></a></p>
<p>The inaptly dubbed &#8220;War on Terror&#8221; continues to run up an ever-higher  body count. In the nearly ten years since 9-11, the so-called &#8220;Religion  of Peace&#8221; has racked up over 17,000 deadly attacks, killing tens of  thousands all over the globe (all carefully documented by the  indefatigable folks at aptly-named site <a href="http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/" target="_blank">The Religion of Peace</a>).  With the body count ratcheting ever higher on a daily basis, why do  many if not the majority of Muslims seem so indifferent to the carnage,  or worse, even enthusiastic about the never-ending bloodshed committed  in the name of Islam? In fact, Muslims have proven themselves highly  resistant to the idea of criticizing their coreligionists, no matter  what outrage has been committed.</p>
<p>For a Malaysian example of this disturbing behaviour, let’s examine the Malaysian reactions to the passing of Dr. Azahari Husin in 2005. Doctor Azahari &#8212; a former Malaysian university professor &#8212; was a committed jihadist and chief bombmaker for the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah.  As you may recall, he was directly implicated in both Bali bombings (2002 and 2005), the JW Mariott hotel bombing in Jakarta in 2003, and the Australian embassy bombing in Jakarta in 2004.  Azahari was in fact an unrepentant mass murderer, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent people.  But, as his family and the Malaysian media would have it, he was also supposedly a ‘genuinely warm and caring kind of guy’ who selflessly went to serve a &#8216;higher cause&#8217;.</p>
<p>Here is the kind of spin his family put on the ‘fondly remembered’ Doctor Azahari, as was published verbatim in a Malaysian newspaper at the time (link unavailable):</p>
<blockquote><p><em>…in his family, he was a respected big brother whose skills in Maths and zest for sports were a source of inspiration to his nine siblings. Azahari Husin’s sister, Suraya, 45, recalled that her brother loved cowboy movies and thought girls were &#8220;soppy&#8221;. &#8230; He loved the outdoors and once hitchhiked on a lorry from the premier </em><em>Malay</em><em> </em><em>College</em><em> (in) Kuala Kangsar, where he studied, to his home in Jasin as a teenager.  When he studied in </em><em>Australia</em><em>, he took motorcycle excursions across the desert. He loved orchids and sports cars.</em></p></blockquote>
<p>And while the family found  plenty of wonderful memories to share with the sympathetic Malaysian media,  there was nary a trace of condemnation of the late doctor&#8217;s multi-year  murder spree. Azahari&#8217;s family did have this to say about the notorious terrorist in the family:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>“… our family and friends never interfered with what my brother did. That’s the integrity of our family,” said (a younger sister of Dr Azahari Husin.) &#8230; “People can say what they want, but I know my brother,” she said when pressed for comments by newsmen at her house in Jalan Chin Chin here yesterday. </em></p></blockquote>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>Azahari also received a hero’s send-off at his funeral in his hometown of Jasin, a small town several hours&#8217; drive south of the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.  The ceremony attracted some 600 well wishers, who repeatedly chanted ‘Allahu akbar’ during the funeral.  Many present at the ceremony also voiced skepticism of Azahari’s role as a top terrorist. “Azahari will always have friends here. We shouldn&#8217;t be asked to believe what is written about him in the newspapers,” said one man who refused to identify himself.</p>
<p>These are very curious reactions all around, at the very least.  Given multiple opportunities to condemn terrorism, and to pronounce how un-Islamic all this terrorism supposedly is, Azahari’s family, friends and neighbours all refused to so state.  Rather the opposite, actually &#8212; in particular, Azahari’s sister said for the record that family and friends “…never interfered with what my brother did”.  This is a disturbingly noncommittal thing to say about a man intimately involved in carrying out mass murder, and for conspiring to commit even more mass murder.  Indeed, it could even be construed as approval.</p>
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		<title>Is Islam Poised to Take Over?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/the-anti-jihadist/is-islam-poised-to-take-over/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=is-islam-poised-to-take-over</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 08 Jun 2011 04:00:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[The Anti-Jihadist]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=95301</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why, frighteningly, it seems to be the case. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/willwin.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-95304" title="willwin" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/willwin.jpg" alt="" width="258" height="195" /></a></p>
<p>The great 19th century British naturalist Charles Darwin&#8217;s singular  contribution to the annals of science was his still provocative idea  of &#8220;survival of the fittest.&#8221; In other words, the species best adopted  to its environment tends to survive and thrive, while those less than  ideally suited tend to perish. Furthermore, changing conditions can and  do cause the emergence of newly dominant organisms. The fossil record is  full of the remnants of species &#8212; dinosaurs, mammoths, dodo birds, et al &#8212; that were,  for whatever reason, not up to the task of surviving in a changing  world.</p>
<p>Darwin&#8217;s theory can also be extended to fields outside the  natural sciences. Other entities also rise and fall in their respective  realms depending on their ability to cope with a dynamic environment  and how they deal with their competitors. For example, corporations succeed or fail  based on how well they have &#8216;read&#8217; their chosen marketplaces and  operating conditions. What happens if companies are not able or no longer able to  perform these functions well? Well, just ask anyone who used to work for Eastern Airlines or Air America Radio.</p>
<p>Other  human  organizations also must cope with the same dynamics. They must  attract new members, care for and retain existing ones, address funding,  resource and logistical issues, handle other administrative matters  with reasonable levels of  efficiency, manage their own culture/ideology over time, and effectively   deal with competitors.</p>
<p>Islam is a belief system as well as an  organization, and it too faces these issues. Whatever can be said about  Islam&#8217;s supposed merits,  Islam works. By &#8216;works&#8217;, I mean that Islam has proven itself to be  rather effective in recruiting or adding new members, and dealing with  competing belief systems. Islam manages these and other functions,  simply put, through  coercion, intimidation, fanaticism, deception and violence. Muslims,  once &#8216;born into&#8217; or converted to the belief system, cannot leave under  pain  of death. Other belief systems that Islam bumps up against are mislead,  oppressed, exploited, marginalized, or outright annihilated, as the  followers of  Zoroaster in Persia, Buddha in Afghanistan, or YHWH in Arabia could  readily attest to. If they could still testify to anything, that is.  Islam&#8217;s murderous Jihad, having utterly liquidated all of them, has  relegated  many of its competitors to the dusty and forgotten pages of history.</p>
<p>By  accident of geology, many Muslim nations sit on top of vast quantities of  oil, which requires little processing, is in high demand, and thus can  be sold at vast profit. This not only takes care of fundraising, but  also finances additional growth and offensive operations (information  warfare, lawfare, &#8216;martyrdom&#8217; operations, etc.) against competing  ideologies. Such sales also have the added bonus &#8212; for Islam of course &#8212;  of draining the coffers of non Muslims.</p>
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		<title>A Malaysian Journey from the Heart of Darkness</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/the-anti-jihadist/a-malaysian-journey-from-the-heart-of-darkness/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-malaysian-journey-from-the-heart-of-darkness</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/the-anti-jihadist/a-malaysian-journey-from-the-heart-of-darkness/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 06 Jun 2011 04:15:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[The Anti-Jihadist]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=95189</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[My path out of Islam.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/darkmal.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-95193" title="darkmal" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/darkmal.jpg" alt="" width="475" height="306" /></a></p>
<p>For most Americans and those reading this, the nation of  Malaysia&#8211;the country I call home&#8211;is likely nothing more but a  mysterious, distant, small and relatively unimportant land. Some of you  might be familiar with Malaysia&#8217;s carefully cultivated public image of  being some sort of harmonious multicultural tropical paradise, which is  recycled endlessly in 30-second-long television spots both here and  overseas.</p>
<p>But for anyone who may be trying to come to grips with the grim  reality that is Islam, Malaysia may be one of the most important places  on the planet. That&#8217;s because anyone who still, despite all the  evidence, feels that there really is a moderate, progressive, tolerant  and peaceful Islam, need look no further than Malaysia. Once you do,  you&#8217;ll be thoroughly disabused of this notion.</p>
<p>My own awakening to Islam is mostly a tale of ignorance and more than  whiff of denial, punctuated by sudden, shattering and irreversible  epiphanies. I say &#8216;shattering&#8217; because the ideas that I embraced as I  grew up&#8211;that Islam is just one religion of many, and doesn&#8217;t  particularly pose a threat to anyone&#8211;does not withstand anything more  than a cursory examination of the facts. And as the evidence piled up  and my doubts grew, those old notions I had held previously, like a  sheet of plate glass, came apart under the hammer blows of truth.</p>
<p>The first blow to my complacency was that dark day in Lower Manhattan  nearly ten years ago. Like so many others reading this, I was horrified  at the televised scenes of destruction and carnage in New York and  Washington. How could any rational human feel otherwise? But as the days  and months passed after September 11th, I starting hearing Malaysians  say, over and over, that the US Government was lying about 9-11, that it  was a &#8216;set up&#8217; and a plot against Islam. And that the Jews were really  behind it, of course. As I realized how sincere these Malaysians were in  these outlandish ideas, I thought, &#8220;What makes so many people in this  country prone to this nonsense?&#8221; At the time, the exact answers eluded  me, but my budding doubts about Islam festered.</p>
<p>Another devastating blow came when Doctor Azahari Husin, a well  educated Malaysian who had willingly and savagely butchered hundreds,  maybe thousands of innocents, both Muslim and &#8216;infidel&#8217; alike, became  the most notorious terrorist in Southeast Asia. When he was buried in  his hometown here in Malaysia in 2005. I read about it in the Malaysian  newspapers. The local media did their best to humanize the man, and his  funeral was like a hero&#8217;s sendoff, well attended by hundreds of Malays  who screamed &#8216;Allahu akbar&#8217; as his coffin was lowered into the ground.  The Malaysian government said nothing about Azahari&#8217;s passing, not even a  perfunctory condemnation of his wanton deeds. In addition, Azahari&#8217;s  own family has, to this day, steadfastly refused to apologize for any of  Azahari&#8217;s long list of crimes. I remembered thinking at the time, &#8220;What  kind of government and what kind of family could refuse to condemn a  mass murderer?&#8217;  My doubts grew apace.</p>
<p>It was about this time when I began my own private investigation into  Islam, to go beyond apologetic Malaysian government textbooks and  misleading press accounts. Finding nothing credible in the local,  heavily censored bookshops, I searched online. Soon I discovered the  carefully-researched work of Robert Spencer. His words online, and in  his book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0895260131/ref=ase_robertspencer-20/103-1603172-8127010?v=glance&amp;s=books" target="_blank">The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam</a></em> reeked and shouted of the truth, a truth I had sensed for some time but which I had long failed to see its full dimensions.</p>
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		<title>Why Muslim Cultures Lag Behind</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/the-anti-jihadist/why-muslim-cultures-lag-behind/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=why-muslim-cultures-lag-behind</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Jun 2011 04:12:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[The Anti-Jihadist]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=95065</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The basic truths the major media dares not touch. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/cultures.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-95071" title="cultures" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/cultures.jpg" alt="" width="475" height="328" /></a></p>
<p>In the past fifty years, many countries have caught up with the rich  and developed Western World. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore,  with virtually no natural resources, have created advanced, urbanized  and prosperous societies, complete with world-class technology that  often exceed that which is found in the West. India, Brazil and China,  although not yet fully developed, now all possess large and affluent  middle classes that did not exist just a few decades ago. There is no  reason to believe why their economic and social progress of all of these  countries will not continue for the foreseeable future.</p>
<p>The Muslim world, on the other hand, has struggled during this era of  unprecedented global wealth creation. These countries have profited  almost solely, by happy geological accident, from oil and gas  extraction. Beyond these activities, economic activity in Muslim  countries remains scant, low tech and strictly oriented towards local  consumption.  Despite trillions of dollars in oil revenue over the past  sixty years, Muslim progress in many other areas, such as scientific  research, social issues and education, lags badly behind the rest of the  world.</p>
<p>How could this be the case? The answer, which the major media dares  not touch, lies in the very culture of Muslim countries themselves.  Consider the following cultural traits which are all typically found in  majority Muslim countries:</p>
<p><strong>Belief in magic.</strong> State-owned Malaysian newspapers  and television stations routinely run breathless stories about witch  doctors (‘bomoh’), evil spirits and other forms of the supernatural.  Visitors to Malaysia get a good laugh out of such quaint cultural  practices, until they realize with a shock that Malaysian belief in such  superstition is absolutely sincere. But it’s not just here in Malaysia  where this happens. In Saudi Arabia, witchcraft is considered very real  and a capital offence. In Iran, laws are on the books that make  &#8216;sorcery&#8217; a crime. And in Iraq, many of the locals are absolutely  convinced that American soldiers wear sunglasses that can see through  clothing and have bases protected by force fields. A culture that is  eager to embrace the supernatural takes a giant step away from  rationality and deceives itself fundamentally. Self-deception is always,  sooner or later, the path to failure.</p>
<p><strong>Belief in conspiracies.</strong> Muslims take it as an  Article of Faith that various groups of so-called infidels or other  outsiders are engaged in various conspiracies to keep Muslims down, make  Islam look bad, or are otherwise up to No Good. The lack of evidence  means little to a society where ‘skepticism’ is already an unusual and  foreign concept. For instance, even well-educated Muslims will tell you,  with total earnestness, that the 9-11 terror attacks were actually  perpetrated by Zionists, or the CIA, or the U.S. Government, or some  other nefarious group. Never mind the vast amount of evidence to the  contrary. When presented with rebuttals from non-Muslims, Muslims will  usually just shrug it off and carry on with their nonsensical conspiracy  theories.</p>
<p><strong>Lack of innovation.</strong> Here in Malaysia, it is telling  that the word in the Malay language for innovation (“inovasi”) did not  exist until it came from English, quite recently, as a loan word.  Innovation, meaning to create something without precedent, is a risky  and therefore dangerous business in the Islamic world. The reason for  this is because Islam already has a word for innovation, “bid’ah”. In  Islam, this word is essentially the same in meaning as ‘heresy’, which  is yet another capital crime under Islamic law. Hence creativity and  individuality are utterly stifled in a totalitarian fashion, even in  Muslim countries where Islamic law has not yet been fully implemented.  Improvisation is also discouraged for similar reasons. This is a major  reason why Islamic countries are usually characterized by a near-total  lack of scientific research and reluctance to embrace technology in  general.</p>
<p><strong>Lack of devotion to non-family/non tribal/non-clan organizations.</strong> In most Muslim societies, loyalty often runs no farther than one’s  tribe or sect. People from the far-off central government, or those from  the next valley over for that matter, are foreigners to be met with  suspicion or hostility. Afghanistan is a perfect example of this sort of  chaos. Even if these differences are eventually papered over, so to  speak, by the force and coercion of a dictatorship, the lack of cohesion  and distrust remain. Muslim leaders usually come into and stay in power  by exploiting this very characteristic, by playing one tribe or group  off another. Patriotism amongst the general public is another foreign  concept, taken for granted in the West. Muslims may remain loyal to  Islam in general, but more importantly, to the tribe in particular.</p>
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