Marked for Death: Islam's War Against the West and Me (33 page)

Islam is one of those evil empires, and it too will collapse once people begin telling the truth. Indeed, 2011 may have marked a turning point that exposed Islam’s inherent weakness. I am not referring to the so-called “Arab Spring”—as explained earlier in this book, all that’s happening in the Arab Spring is that one set of Islamic tyrants is replacing another. What is needed in Islamic countries is not a change in leadership, but for Muslims themselves to renounce Islam and liberate themselves from the ideology’s mental prison. And this may have begun to happen.

My hope is based on the courage shown by a few women in Saudi Arabia, the heartland of Islam. The Saudi regime is famously misogynistic, ruthlessly enforcing laws that force women to dress in stifling costumes and refrain from publicly associating with men. These laws generally reduce women to an infantile state of dependence on male family members, but in August 2006, Wajeha al-Huwaider had enough of this injustice. She staged a one-woman demonstration by holding a placard proclaiming “Give Women Their Rights!” She was promptly arrested by the Mutaween, the religious police.

Her activism, she explained to an American journalist, is meant to “defend her existence as a person.” It began as a young girl at home, “to prove to my parents that I am no less than my brothers.” But she was most affected by her brief stay in the United States. “Before that, I knew that I’m a human being,” she said. “However, in the United States I felt it, because I was treated as one. I learned life means nothing without freedom.”
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Al-Huwaider posted articles on the internet (since she is not allowed to publish in Saudi Arabia) condemning the abuse of women in Arab countries. “Among the Arabs, the cycle of discrimination against the woman usually begins at home. From a young age, the son receives the lion’s share (the share of two women), in love, in outlay, in status, and even in education,” she writes. “The young man has opportunities, while the young girl has obligations.”
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In one article she argues that prisoners in Guantanamo Bay in some respects are better off than some Arab women who are kept as prisoners in their own homes. While the Guantanamo prisoners “wear practical, light-colored clothing suitable for the climate...some Arab women are forced to wear impractical and suffocating garments.... A prisoner in Guantanamo [can] see the sun, feel its rays and enjoy the caress of fresh air on his face, even when he is physically in chains, whereas the women in some Arab states are shackled [both] physically and spiritually.... The minute the girl enters her teens, she no longer sees the light of day, and she cannot breathe fresh air except through a veil, since she is covered from head to toe in black garments.”
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Unfortunately, al-Huwaider laments, the world does not seem to notice or care. “Nobody has lifted a finger for the Arab women who have been kept prisoner for hundreds of years. No organization, local or international, official or unofficial, has bothered to expose what is happening to them in the dungeons incorrectly referred to as ‘their homes.’...Why do the human rights activists ignore their suffering as though they do not even exist? Why isn’t the cry of these millions of women heard, and why isn’t it answered by anyone, anywhere? Why? Why? Why?”
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Since 2006, Wajeha al-Huwaider’s campaign has slowly gained support from other women who, like al-Huwaider, long to live in a country where they can sleep freely, knowing “there won’t be a knock at my door and they will say, ‘You are arrested.’”
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In May 2011, as part of an initiative called Women2Drive, al-Huwaider filmed a video, later posted on YouTube and Facebook, of her fellow activist Manal al-Sharif driving a car.
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This seemingly routine action was in fact a bold challenge to one of the Saudi regime’s iconic misogynistic policies: its ban on women drivers. The initiative followed up on al-Huwaider’s protest from 2008, when she posted a video clip on YouTube of herself driving a car.
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For al-Sharif, the knock on the door came shortly after midnight on May 22, 2011. She was detained in Dammam prison on charges of disturbing public order and inciting public opinion. But al-Sharif’s brave act quickly drew popular support. Her Facebook page attracted more than 12,000 supporters before the authorities blocked it, and more than 3,300 Saudis, men and women alike, signed an online petition asking King Abdullah to release her.
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As France’s AFP reported, “A Facebook page titled ‘We are all Manal al-Sharif: a call for solidarity with Saudi women’s rights,’ on Sunday had over 24,000 supporters. However, another Facebook page called on men to use ‘iqals’—the cords used with traditional headdresses by many Gulf men—to beat Saudi women who drive their cars in a planned June 17 protest against the kingdom’s ban on women taking the wheel.”
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The Saudi authorities, uneasy with the international attention the case was drawing, released al-Sharif on bail nine days after her arrest, on condition that she refrain from driving or talking to the media. But al-Sharif had already inspired other Saudi women. During the following weeks, up to forty women publicly defied the driving ban, while al-Sharif began campaigning on Twitter for the release of female prisoners in Dammam prison. Many of these women are Filipino or Indonesian domestic workers imprisoned over some small debt. Abandoned by their employers, they cannot afford to pay for a flight home.
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On September 26, 2011, Women2Drive again made international headlines when a Saudi court sentenced Shaima Jastaina to be whipped with ten lashes for driving a car. King Abdullah quickly overturned the sentence, most likely due to the publicity Women2Drive had brought to the case.
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These events may seem insignificant, but they prove that just a few brave people can achieve great things. A despotic monarch ruling an Islamic dictatorship of 27 million inhabitants can be forced to give in to the pressure of barely forty courageous women. As Andrew Jackson said, “One man with courage makes a majority.”
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It is our responsibility as Westerners to oppose the expansion of Islam, but it should be the Muslims’ responsibility to
outgrow
Islam. The fact that Islam forbids Muslims from leaving the fold does not mean Muslims don’t have the option to do so.

The American Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
All men—
that includes Muslims. And just as Americans liberated themselves from their British oppressors, Muslims must free themselves from Islam because they, too, have an unalienable right to freedom. In liberating themselves from Islam, they will ensure a happier life for themselves and their children, and a safer, more peaceful world for the rest of us.

Muslims must break the asphyxiating rules that Muhammad imposed on their societies. They must liberate themselves from the mental prison that traps them. In short, Muslims must defeat Islam.

Brave women such as Wajeha al-Huwaider and Manal al-Sharif are beginning to liberate themselves. They reject the “outdated chauvinistic interpretations” of Islam which, as al-Huwaider writes, are “no longer right for an era in which dogs and cats in the developed world have more rights than Arab women—or even Arab men.”
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Of course, the reason why these “chauvinistic interpretations” dominate the Islamic world is because these interpretations are true to the Koran and to Muhammad’s life. These interpretations
are
Islam. People who reject Islam’s violent, intolerant, and misogynistic commandments may be moderates, but they are not practicing “moderate Islam”—they are not practicing Islam at all.

I wholeheartedly support those who struggle for freedom in the Islamic world. The Arab, Turkish, Iranian, Pakistani, and Indonesian peoples have tremendous potential. If they could liberate themselves from the yoke of Islam, if they would stop taking Muhammad as a role model, and if they got rid of the hateful Koran, they would be able to achieve amazing things.

As I wrote in a dispatch to Muslims in July 2010, “My message... is clear: ‘Fatalism is no option;
Inch’ Allah
is a curse; Submission is a disgrace. Free yourselves. It is up to you.’”
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While brave women such as Wajeha al-Huwaider and Manal al-Sharif in Saudi Arabia, and countless other men and women in Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, and elsewhere in the Islamic world, are risking their lives, we—the men and women of the free world—must do our duty as well. Islam has marked us, collectively, for death, but we remain free individuals. We should never give in to fear.

To preserve our freedoms from the encroachments of Islam, we must do four things: defend freedom of speech, reject cultural relativism, counter Islamization, and cherish our national identity. Let’s discuss each of these actions in turn.

First, we must defend freedom of speech, which is the most important of our liberties. So long as we are free to speak, we can tell people the truth and make them realize what’s at stake. The truth is our only weapon—we must use it. The West’s political, academic, and media establishment are concealing the true scope of the Islamic threat. But the people sense they are not getting the whole story, and they are eager to know more. We must spread the message.

We must also repeal all hate speech laws, which are used to silence Islam’s critics. Europe, where hate speech laws strictly circumscribe the bounds of free speech, should adopt some sort of “European First Amendment” that will abolish the current restrictions and allow the people to fully debate Islam just like any other public issue. Free speech is a fragile thing that must be vigilantly defended, for it is the cornerstone of a free society. As George Orwell said, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
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Second, we must reject all forms of cultural relativism. Let’s say it frankly: our civilized Western culture is far superior to the barbaric culture of Islam. Once we acknowledge this and stop being afraid of saying it, we will be better prepared to defend our civilization. Western nations should add an amendment to our constitutions stating that our societies are based on Judeo-Christian and humanist values. In other words, we owe nothing to Islam. We should also stop the political indoctrination of our children and begin proudly teaching them the real history of the West instead of multiculturalist lies designed to instill shame in our own heritage. We must also prepare the coming generation for the difficult times ahead by explaining Islam’s true, bloody history.

Third, we must stop the Islamization of the West. We begin by recognizing two politically incorrect facts: that migration, or
hijra,
is one of the most important instruments of Islamization, and that throughout history, more Islam has meant less freedom. Once we acknowledge these facts, our course of action is clear: we must close the floodgates of Islamic immigration to the West by stopping
all
immigration from Islamic countries. Having accepted millions of Islamic immigrants in recent decades, the West has already been welcoming enough to Islam. Instead of admitting even more Islamic immigrants, it’s time to focus on integrating the immigrants who are already here and preventing the appearance of any new “cities of the prophet” on Western soil.

We must also demand that immigrants who are already here assimilate to our societies, adapt to our values, and abide by our laws. We must oppose the introduction of Sharia, or Islamic law, anywhere in our countries. As for immigrants who insist on Sharia, we should recall British Prime Minister William Gladstone’s statement about the Ottomans: “Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only possible manner, namely by carrying off themselves.”
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Criminals with dual nationality should automatically be stripped of their Western nationality and sent back to the country of their other nationality. We should not allow people with dual nationality to assume political office.

The message to all newcomers in our societies should be clear: if you subscribe to our laws and values, you are welcome to stay and enjoy all the rights our society guarantees; we will even help you to assimilate. But if you commit crimes, act against our laws, or wage jihad, you will be expelled.